Abstract
The potential effect of tidal devices on marine mammals is a concern for developing tidal energy resources worldwide. Expanding on work done by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratory, and the U.S. Department of Energy, this paper examines existing tissue data for the endangered Southern Resident Killer Whale (Orcinus orca) and the harbor seal (Phoca vitulina) to understand how variability in the data impacts the results. This paper describes methods for numerically characterizing marine mammal tissues and attempts to understand the impacts of the non-linear response and anisotropy present in most living tissue. An ABAQUS finite element model was created to characterize the response of the variability in material data and therefore elucidate data gaps in the biomechanical properties of marine mammals.