What dolphins can teach us about hydrodynamics

The flippers that some marine mammals use to glide underwater have a lot in common with the wings of passenger jets and fighter planes.

An interdisciplinary team of scientists from Duke University, West Chester University and the United States Naval Academy recently found out just how similar the manmade wings and marine mammal flippers are by testing scale models in a water tunnel.

“Ultimately, the goal is to have a better understanding of how an animal moves and maneuvers,” says Laurens Howle, a professor of mechanical engineering and materials science at Duke, and co-author of the study in The Journal of Experimental Biology. “This [research] is one small step along that road.

Click link for more.