This study was inspired from the swimming habits of red nose tetra fish that prefer side-by-side configurations and exhibit changes to their synchronization mid-swimming. Using numerical simulations, alterations to the unsteady wake dynamics imposed by abrupt changes in the phase angle between two pitching side-by-side foils were examined at Reynolds number of 4;000 and Strouhal number of 0:50. Four hybrid modes were considered in thisstudy with two modes representing an abrupt phase change by pi during the 20th cycle. The other two modes represented a simplified case of burst-and-coast swimming, in which there was a brief (2 oscillation periods) suspension of oscillations before imposing a change in phase angle. In all cases, the foils initially performed out-of-phase pitching, and then they started their in-phase motion by either performing the upstroke or down-stroke first. This kinematic change resulted in the formation and growth of a secondary vortex street in between two primary streets, which enabled and maintained a split wake configuration. Furthermore, the phase switching altered the pressure levels on the top and bottom surfaces of both foils to almost similar levels, which attributed to a reduction in the side-force. The growth rate of the secondary vortex street remained consistent for all four hybrid modes.
We experimentally studied the effect of flexibility on the flow produced by sinusoidally pitching foil in quiescent fluid. The rigid foil produces a weak, divergent and meandering jet. On the contrary, the foil with a flexible flap produces an orderly, narrow, coherent jet. It has been observed that such orderly jet is produced when the flap has appropriate flexibility. The jet produced in quiescent fluid by the flexible foil is accompanied by a corresponding thrust. In that sense, this is simple and different type of hovering.
We consider the propulsive performance of an unsteady heaving and pitching foil, experimentally studying an extensive parameter space of motion amplitudes, frequencies, and phase offsets between the heave and pitch motions. The phase offset $ϕ$ between the heaving and pitching motions proves to be a critical parameter in determining the dynamics of the foil and its propulsive performance. To maximize thrust, the heave and pitch motions need to be nearly in phase ($ϕ=330^\circ$), but to maximize efficiency, the pitch motion needs to lag the heave motion ($ϕ=270^\circ$), corresponding to slicing…
Scaling laws for the propulsive performance of rigid foils undergoing oscillatory heaving and pitching motions are presented. Water tunnel experiments on a nominally two-dimensional flow validate the scaling laws, with the scaled data for thrust, power, and efficiency all showing excellent collapse. The analysis indicates that the behaviour of the foils depends on both Strouhal number and reduced frequency, but for motions where the viscous drag is small the thrust closely follows a linear dependence on reduced frequency. The scaling laws are also shown to be consistent with biological data on…
The effect of flexibility on the hydrodynamic loads and on the flow structures generated on a rectangular foil when oscillating in pitch has been studied. Hydrodynamic loads were measured with a 6-axes balance, and the flow structures were investigated by using a Digital Particle Image Velocimetry (DPIV). It is known from nature's fin based propulsion mechanisms, that appendage stiffness plays an important role in their propulsive efficiency. We have studied four different stiffnesses, ranging from completely rigid to highly flexible. Optimal efficiency has been observed for an intermediate ca…
A flexible foil undergoing pitching oscillations is studied experimentally in a wind tunnel with different imposed free stream velocities. The chord-based Reynolds number is in the range 1600--4000, such that the dynamics of the system is governed by inertial forces and the wake behind the foil exhibits the reverse Bénard-von Kármán vortex street characteristic of flapping-based propulsion. Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) measurements are performed to examine the flow around the foil, whilst the deformation of the foil is also tracked. The first natural frequency of vibration of the foil is w…
A transient two-dimensional acoustic boundary element solver is coupled to a potential flow boundary element solver via Powell's acoustic analogy to determine the acoustic emission of isolated hydrofoils performing biologically-inspired motions. The flow-acoustic boundary element framework is validated against experimental and asymptotic solutions for the noise produced by canonical vortex-body interactions. The numerical framework then characterizes the noise production of an oscillating foil, which is a simple representation of a fish caudal fin. A rigid NACA 0012 hydrofoil is subjected to c…
Scaling laws for the thrust production and power consumption of a purely pitching hydrofoil in ground effect are presented. For the first time, ground effect scaling laws based on physical insights capture the propulsive performance over a wide range of biologically-relevant Strouhal numbers, dimensionless amplitudes, and dimensionless ground distances. This is achieved by advancing previous scaling laws (Moored & Quinn 2018) with physics-driven modifications to the added mass and circulatory forces to account for ground distance variations. The key physics introduced are the increase in the a…
The hydrodynamic influence of surface texture on static surfaces ranges from large drag penalties (roughness) to potential performance benefits (shark-like skin). Although, it is of wide-ranging research interest, the impact of roughness on flapping systems has received limited attention. In this work, we explore the effect of roughness on unsteady performance of a harmonically pitching foil through experiments using foils with different surface roughness, at a fixed Strouhal number and within the Reynolds number (Re) range of 15k-30k. The foils' surface roughness is altered by changing the di…
Inviscid computations are presented of a self-propelled virtual body connected to a combined heaving and pitching foil that uses continuous and intermittent motions. It is determined that intermittent swimming can improve efficiency when the dimensionless heave ratio is $h^* < 0.7$ while it degrades efficiency for $h^* \geq 0.7$. This is a consequence of the physical origins of the force production for pitch-dominated ($h^* < 0.5$) and heave-dominated ($h^* > 0.5$) motions. Based on insight derived from classic unsteady thin airfoil theory, it is discovered that pitch-dominated motions are dri…
In this study, we present two and three-dimensional numerical investigation to understand the combined effects of the non-dimensional heave amplitude varying from 0 to 1 and the pitch amplitude ranging from 0 to 30 on the propulsive performance for a single and tandem foil system at Reynolds number 1100 and reduced frequency 0.2. We initially present a systematic analysis on the thrust generation due to the kinematic parameters for a single foil. The significance of effective angle of attack and the projected area of the foil has been emphasized in explaining the dynamics of lift and drag forc…
The wake of a flexible foil undergoing pitching oscillations in a low-speed hydrodynamic tunnel is used to examine the effect of chord-wise foil flexibility in the dynamical features of flapping-based propulsion. We compare the regime transitions in the wake with respect to the case of a rigid foil and show that foil flexibility inhibits the symmetry breaking of the reverse Bénard-von Kármán wake reported in the literature. A momentum balance calculation shows the average thrust to be up to three times greater for the flexible foil than for the rigid foil. We explain both of these observations…
Fish schools are ubiquitous in marine life. Although flow interactions are thought to be beneficial for schooling, their exact effects on the speed, energetics, and stability of the group remain elusive. Recent experiments suggest that flow interactions stabilize in-tandem formations of heaving foils. Here, we propose a minimal approach based on the vortex sheet model that captures salient features of the flow interactions among flapping swimmers, and we study the free swimming of a pair of in-line swimmers driven with identical heaving or pitching motions. We find that, independent of the fla…
Experiments are reported on the performance of a pitching and heaving two-dimensional foil in a water channel in either continuous or intermittent motion. We find that the thrust and power are independent of the mean freestream velocity for two-fold changes in the mean velocity (four-fold in the dynamic pressure), and for oscillations in the velocity up to 38\% of the mean, where the oscillations are intended to mimic those of freely swimming motions where the thrust varies during the flapping cycle. We demonstrate that the correct velocity scale is not the flow velocity but the mean velocity …
The unsteady hydrodynamics of two in-phase pitching foils arranged in side-by-side (parallel) configurations is examined for a range of Strouhal number and separation distance. Three distinct vortex patterns are identified in the Strohual number-separation distance phase maps, which include separated wake, merged wake, and transitional-merged wake. Furthermore, a novel model is introduced based on fundamental flow variables including velocity, location, and circulation of dipole structures to quantitatively distinguish vortex patterns in the wake. The physical mechanism of wake merging process…
The energy extraction and vortex dynamics from the sinusoidal heaving and pitching motion of an elliptical hydrofoil is explored through large-eddy simulations (LES) at a Reynolds number of $50,000$. The LES is able to capture the time-dependent vortex shedding and dynamic stall properties of the foil as it undergoes high relative angles of attack. Results of the computations are validated against experimental flume data in terms of power extraction and leading edge vortex (LEV) position and trajectory. The kinematics for optimal efficiency are found in the range of heave amplitude $h_o/c=0.5-…
