TY - JOUR
TI - Mechanics of the Right Whale Mandible: Full Scale Testing and Finite Element Analysis
AU - Tsukrov, I
AU - DeCew, J
AU - Baldwin, K
AU - Campbell-Malone, R
AU - Moore, M
T2 - Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology
AB - In an effort to better understand the mechanics of ship-whale collision and to reduce the associated mortality of the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale, a comprehensive biomechanical study has been conducted by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the University of New Hampshire. The goal of the study is to develop a numerical modeling tool to predict the forces and stresses during impact and thereby the resulting mortality risk to whales from ship strikes.Based on post-mortem examinations, jaw fracture was chosen as a fatal endpoint for the whales hit by a vessel. In this paper we investigate the overall mechanical behavior of a right whale mandible under transverse loading and develop a finite element analysis model of the bone. The equivalent elastic modulus of the cortical component of right whale mandible is found by comparing full-scale bending tests with the results of numerical modeling. The finite element model of the mandible can be used in conjunction with a vessel-whale collision event model to predict bone fracture for various ship strike scenarios.
DA - 2009/06//
PY - 2009
VL - 374
IS - 2
SP - 93
EP - 103
UR - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022098109001014
DO - 10.1121/1.1288409
LA - English
KW - Collision
KW - Marine Mammals
KW - Cetaceans
ER -