Laboratory Studies on the Effects of Shear on Fish

The overall objective of our studies was to specify an index describing the hydraulic force that fish experience when subjected to a shear environment. Fluid shear is a phenomenon that is important to fish. However, elevated levels of shear may result in strain rates that injure or kill fish. At hydroelectric generating facilities, concerns have been expressed that strain rates associated with passage through turbines, spillways, and fish bypass systems may adversely affect migrating fish. Development of fish friendly hydroelectric turbines requires knowledge of the physical forces (injury mechanisms) that impact entrained fish and the fish's tolerance to these forces. It requires up-front, pre-design specifications for the environmental conditions that occur within the turbine system, in other words, determining or assuming that those conditions known to injure fish will provide the descriptions of conditions that engineers must consider in the design of a turbine system. These biological specifications must be carefully and thoroughly documented throughout the design of a fish friendly turbine. To address the development of biological specifications, we designed and built a test facility where juvenile fish could be subjected to a range of shear environments and quantified their biological response