The Nasal Geometry of the Reindeer Gives Energy-Efficient Respiration
Source: doi:10.1515/jnet-2016-0038 Reindeer in the arctic region live under very harsh conditions and may face temperatures below 233 K. Therefore, efficient conservation of body heat and water is important for their survival. Alongside their insulating fur, the reindeer nasal mechanism for heat and...
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ftunivtroemsoe:oai:munin.uit.no:10037/10767 2023-05-15T15:03:49+02:00 The Nasal Geometry of the Reindeer Gives Energy-Efficient Respiration Magnanelli, Elisa Wilhelmsen, Øivind Acquarone, Mario Folkow, Lars Kjelstrup, Signe 2016-07-14 https://hdl.handle.net/10037/10767 https://doi.org/10.1515/jnet-2016-0038 eng eng De Gruyter Journal of Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics Magnanelli E, Wilhelmsen Ø, Acquarone M, Folkow P., Kjelstrup S. The Nasal Geometry of the Reindeer Gives Energy-Efficient Respiration. Journal of Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics. Volume 42, Issue 1, Pages 59–78, ISSN (Online) 1437-4358, ISSN (Print) 0340-0204, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/jnet-2016-0038, July 2016 FRIDAID 1382869 doi:10.1515/jnet-2016-0038 0340-0204 1437-4358 https://hdl.handle.net/10037/10767 openAccess VDP::Matematikk og Naturvitenskap: 400 VDP::Mathematics and natural science: 400 Journal article Tidsskriftartikkel Peer reviewed 2016 ftunivtroemsoe https://doi.org/10.1515/jnet-2016-0038 2021-06-25T17:55:12Z Source: doi:10.1515/jnet-2016-0038 Reindeer in the arctic region live under very harsh conditions and may face temperatures below 233 K. Therefore, efficient conservation of body heat and water is important for their survival. Alongside their insulating fur, the reindeer nasal mechanism for heat and mass exchange during respiration plays a fundamental role. We present a dynamic model to describe the heat and mass transport that takes place inside the reindeer nose, where we account for the complicated geometrical structure of the subsystems that are part of the nose. The model correctly captures the trend in experimental data for the temperature, heat and water recovery in the reindeer nose during respiration. As a reference case, we model a nose with a simple cylindrical-like geometry, where the total volume and contact area are the same as those determined in the reindeer nose. A comparison of the reindeer nose with the reference case shows that the nose geometry has a large influence on the velocity, temperature and water content of the air inside the nose. For all investigated cases, we find that the total entropy production during a breathing cycle is lower for the reindeer nose than for the reference case. The same trend is observed for the total energy consumption. The reduction in the total entropy production caused by the complicated geometry is higher (up to -20 %) at more extreme ambient conditions, when energy efficiency is presumably more important for the maintenance of energy balance in the animal. In the literature, a hypothesis has been proposed, which states that the most energy-efficient design of a system is characterized by equipartition of the entropy production. In agreement with this hypothesis, we find that the local entropy production during a breathing cycle is significantly more uniform for the reindeer nose than for the reference case. This suggests that natural selection has favored designs that give uniform entropy production when energy efficiency is an issue. Animals living in the harsh arctic climate, such as the reindeer, can therefore serve as inspiration for a novel industrial design with increased efficiency. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic University of Tromsø: Munin Open Research Archive Arctic Journal of Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics 42 1 |
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Open Polar |
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University of Tromsø: Munin Open Research Archive |
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ftunivtroemsoe |
language |
English |
topic |
VDP::Matematikk og Naturvitenskap: 400 VDP::Mathematics and natural science: 400 |
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VDP::Matematikk og Naturvitenskap: 400 VDP::Mathematics and natural science: 400 Magnanelli, Elisa Wilhelmsen, Øivind Acquarone, Mario Folkow, Lars Kjelstrup, Signe The Nasal Geometry of the Reindeer Gives Energy-Efficient Respiration |
topic_facet |
VDP::Matematikk og Naturvitenskap: 400 VDP::Mathematics and natural science: 400 |
description |
Source: doi:10.1515/jnet-2016-0038 Reindeer in the arctic region live under very harsh conditions and may face temperatures below 233 K. Therefore, efficient conservation of body heat and water is important for their survival. Alongside their insulating fur, the reindeer nasal mechanism for heat and mass exchange during respiration plays a fundamental role. We present a dynamic model to describe the heat and mass transport that takes place inside the reindeer nose, where we account for the complicated geometrical structure of the subsystems that are part of the nose. The model correctly captures the trend in experimental data for the temperature, heat and water recovery in the reindeer nose during respiration. As a reference case, we model a nose with a simple cylindrical-like geometry, where the total volume and contact area are the same as those determined in the reindeer nose. A comparison of the reindeer nose with the reference case shows that the nose geometry has a large influence on the velocity, temperature and water content of the air inside the nose. For all investigated cases, we find that the total entropy production during a breathing cycle is lower for the reindeer nose than for the reference case. The same trend is observed for the total energy consumption. The reduction in the total entropy production caused by the complicated geometry is higher (up to -20 %) at more extreme ambient conditions, when energy efficiency is presumably more important for the maintenance of energy balance in the animal. In the literature, a hypothesis has been proposed, which states that the most energy-efficient design of a system is characterized by equipartition of the entropy production. In agreement with this hypothesis, we find that the local entropy production during a breathing cycle is significantly more uniform for the reindeer nose than for the reference case. This suggests that natural selection has favored designs that give uniform entropy production when energy efficiency is an issue. Animals living in the harsh arctic climate, such as the reindeer, can therefore serve as inspiration for a novel industrial design with increased efficiency. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Magnanelli, Elisa Wilhelmsen, Øivind Acquarone, Mario Folkow, Lars Kjelstrup, Signe |
author_facet |
Magnanelli, Elisa Wilhelmsen, Øivind Acquarone, Mario Folkow, Lars Kjelstrup, Signe |
author_sort |
Magnanelli, Elisa |
title |
The Nasal Geometry of the Reindeer Gives Energy-Efficient Respiration |
title_short |
The Nasal Geometry of the Reindeer Gives Energy-Efficient Respiration |
title_full |
The Nasal Geometry of the Reindeer Gives Energy-Efficient Respiration |
title_fullStr |
The Nasal Geometry of the Reindeer Gives Energy-Efficient Respiration |
title_full_unstemmed |
The Nasal Geometry of the Reindeer Gives Energy-Efficient Respiration |
title_sort |
nasal geometry of the reindeer gives energy-efficient respiration |
publisher |
De Gruyter |
publishDate |
2016 |
url |
https://hdl.handle.net/10037/10767 https://doi.org/10.1515/jnet-2016-0038 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic |
genre_facet |
Arctic |
op_relation |
Journal of Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics Magnanelli E, Wilhelmsen Ø, Acquarone M, Folkow P., Kjelstrup S. The Nasal Geometry of the Reindeer Gives Energy-Efficient Respiration. Journal of Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics. Volume 42, Issue 1, Pages 59–78, ISSN (Online) 1437-4358, ISSN (Print) 0340-0204, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/jnet-2016-0038, July 2016 FRIDAID 1382869 doi:10.1515/jnet-2016-0038 0340-0204 1437-4358 https://hdl.handle.net/10037/10767 |
op_rights |
openAccess |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1515/jnet-2016-0038 |
container_title |
Journal of Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics |
container_volume |
42 |
container_issue |
1 |
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1766335669253177344 |