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

摘要

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.