The axoneme, a biological template to design a swell energy recovery system.
The axonemal micro-machinery, the axial skeleton and actuator of cilia and flagella of eukaryotic cells, is able to bend and twist and generates wave trains. We already demonstrated that it can be the template to construct an active trunk robot (Cibert 2013 Bioinspir. Biomim. 8 026006). The work presented in this paper describes how the axonemal model can also be useful to design worm shaped devices to convert swell energy into usable energy such as electricity. Using dynamic simulation we have designed three models either very close to the biological machinery or being a reasonable interpretation of its functioning principles. Their main advantage as compared with another existing device, Pelamis, is the additional twist degree-of-freedom that gives interesting properties to the system.
Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin en Yvelines, ISTY, 10-12, avenue de l'Europe, F-78140, Velizy-Villacoublay, France.
Christian
C
Cibert
D054468:Axoneme / Q000502:physiology*; D040761:Biomimetic Materials; D002923:Cilia / Q000502:physiology; D005407:Flagella / Q000502:physiology; D008953:Models, Anatomic; D008954:Models, Biological