A NUMERICAL STUDY ON A SIMPLIFIED TAIL MODEL FOR TURNING FISH IN C-START

Most freshwater fish are good at turning manoeuvres. A simulated fish tail model was numerically investigated and discussed in detail. This study deals with unsteady forces and moment exerted on the fish tail-fin in an initial sideways stroke and a subsequent return stroke motion, and visualizes the flow fields and vortex structures, in order to explore the flow control mechanism of the typical turning motion of fish. Further discussion on fluid dynamic consequences corresponding to two different bending forms of fish tail-fins in its C-start is given. The two-dimensional unsteady incompressible Navier-Stokes equations are solved with a developed pseudo-compressibility method to simulate the flow around the fish tail-fin. The computed results and the comparison with experiments indicate that （1） fish performs a turning motion of its body using the impulsive moment produced by the to-and-fro stroke, and each stage of the process exhibits its specific hydrodynamic characteristic, （2） fishes adopt two forms of tail-tip bend （single bend and double bend） to accomplish a C-start turning manoeuvre, in dependence of their physical situations and natural environments, （3） fish can control its turning motion by modulating some key kinematic parameters.

A NUMERICAL STUDY ON MECHANISM OF S-STARTS OF NORTHERN PIKE (ESOX LUCIUS)

Northern pike is regarded as a specialist in swimming acceleration. The force production mechanism of northern pike, Esox lucius, during its predation S-starts was numerically studied in this article. The problem was reasonably simplified to a loose-coupling problem of fish swimming dynamics and hydrodynamics just in the swimming direction. The approach involved the simulation of the flow by solving the two-dimensional unsteady incompressible Navier-Stokes equations and decribing the fish motion dynamics based on Newton＇s Second Law. Visualizations of flow fields and vortex structures were performed. The results show that the large acceleration is obtained mainly in the first undulatory cycle in which the amplitude increases. In the second cycle, a couple of vortices are generated and induce a jet. In the third cycle, the jet is strengthened by the mergence of the vortices in the same direction. Through discussing the effects of various controllable factors on the swimming performance, it is found that the actual locomotion mode of the northern pike in nature is just the best choice.

DYNAMICS OF FREE STRAIGHT SWIMMING OF ANGULLA ANGULLA INCLUDING FORWARD,BRAKING AND BACKWARD LOCOMOTION

Eels can swim backward by reversing the direction of the traveling wave along the body. The propulsive mechanism of an eel, angulla angulla, during its self-propelled straight swimming, including forward swimming, braking and switching direction to backward swimming was numerically studied. The problem was reasonably simplified to a loose-coupling problem of fish swimming dynamics and hydrodynamics only in the swimming direction. The approach involved the simulation of the flow by solving the two-dimensional unsteady incompressible N-S equations and the fish motion dynamic problem with Newton＇s second law. Visualizations of flow fields and vortex structures were performed. The propulsive mechanism and dynamics during each process were investigated and the effects of controllable factors on forward free swimming were discussed.

NUMERICAL STUDY ON THE VORTEX STRUCTURES IN THE WAKE OF AN OSCILLATING CIRCULAR CYLINDER IN A UNIFORM FLOW

Vortex shedding from a circular cylinder subjected to fortal oscillations at arbitrary angles(as shown in Fis. 1 for 0°<β<90°) with respect to the free stream is numerically investigated using the Navier-Stokes equations. The emphasis of this study is put on revealing the complicated vortex structures and their evolution in the near wake. In the present study, a number of possible vortex modes are also numerically simulated, and a variety of physical phenomena are duplicated and even renewed numerically. A parameter map indicating the classification of preferred vortex modes is firstly given in the frequency-amplitude plane.