Welcome to Workshop Wednesday, a regular feature of the Tecplot blog. Here, we show you how engineers use our visualization software to create inspiringly accurate—and surprisingly beautiful—design simulations.
Tecplot 360 CFD visualization software is used to help decipher, decode, and visualize information, and gain a more thorough understanding of the basic flow around the dorsal fin. Image Credit: Dr. Vadim Pavlov, University of Kiel.
If you’re a research scientist working with sensitive animals like dolphins, you understand something about the way they think.
And one of those things you understand: Dolphins don’t want you to know who they are.
Okay, well, that may be overstating the case. But they definitely don’t like traditional biotelemetry tags, the ID devices usually attached using suction cups or pins.
From a recent Tecplot 360 case study: “Not only can this cause pain, but the presence of the pin and tag can also affect the animal’s behavior, thus biasing the resulting data. There is also significant evidence suggesting that tagged marine animals face a number of health risks.”
And so, it’s science to the rescue.
“The Marine Mammal Science Journal recently published a ground-breaking study that describes the first attempt at developing a less invasive way of tracking dolphins for long-term behavioral research,” reads the study.
The study, which relied heavily on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) using Tecplot 360, found that biotelemetry tags can be held on a dolphin’s dorsal fin by hydrodynamic force, which could eliminate the need to pierce the fins of dolphins.
“This is a small but important step in working with live dolphins because these animals are very sensitive to the devices attached to their body,” said Dr. Vadim Pavlov, University of Kiel. “Normally, they try to get rid of any attachment.”
To read the complete case study, click here.
Or, if you’d like to try Tecplot 360 for free, get your evaluation software here.