Modeling of biomimetic flow sensor based fish dome shaped cupula using PDMS for underwater sensing

This paper presents the initial modeling on the biomimetic flow sensor based fish dome-shaped cupula for underwater sensing. Fish depend on this cupula to monitor the flow fields especially for maneuvering and survival underwater. We proposed the design structure and the principle of sensing using microchannel which is consist of liquid and electrolyte. PDMS material was chosen because it is easy to deform and soft. By using a computational fluid dynamic and finite element method, the optimal performance was obtained by optimizing the geometrical dimension of the radius and thickness of the dome. The sensor performance is measured on the basis of displacement and strain. The sensitivity of the sensor has been investigated by using different radius and thickness of the dome. Dome with a radius of 0.2mm until 1.2mm was chosen for this study. The resulting in a maximum displacement is 0.27μm and the strain is 3.98E-4 for a flow rate of 1m/s. Simulation results show that the sensitivity of the dome is a maximum when the radius of the dome at the maximum and the thickness of the dome at the minimum.