• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.35 no.8
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• pp.847-853
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• 2011

Filiform hairs that respond to movements of the surrounding medium are the mechanoreceptors commonly found in arthropods and vertebrates. The hairs function as a sensory system for perceiving information produced by prey, predators, or conspecifics. A mathematical model is proposed, and the parametric analyses for the response of artificial filiform hair are conducted to design and predict the performance of a microfabricated device. The results for the Cytop hair, one of the most popular polymer optical fibers (POFs), show that the fundamental mode has a dominant effect on the hair behavior in an oscillating medium flow. The dynamic behavior of sensory hair is also dependent on the physical dimensions such as length and diameter. It is found that the artificial hair with a high elastic modulus does not show a resonance in the biologically important frequency range.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.355-364
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• 2010

Filiform hairs that respond to movements of the surrounding medium are the mechanoreceptors commonly found in arthropods and vertebrates. In these creatures, the filiform hairs function as a sensory system for raider detection. Parametric analyses of the motion response of filiform hairs are conducted by using a mathematical model of an artificial flow sensor to understand the possible operating ranges of a microfabricated device. It is found that the length and diameter of the sensory hair are the major parameters that determine the mechanical sensitivities and responses in a mean flow with an oscillating component. By changing the hair length, the angular displacement, velocity, and acceleration could be detected in a wide range of frequencies. Although the torques due to drag and virtual mass are very small, they are also very influential factors on the hair motion. The resonance frequency of the hair decreases as the length and diameter of the hair increase.