A study of 3D flexible caudal fin for fish propulsion

This paper is inspired by a recent numerical study (Shoele and Zhu, 2012, “Leading edge strengthening and the propulsion performance of flexible ray fins,” Journal of Fluid Mechanics, Vol. 693, pp. 402–432), which shows that, for a 2D flexible ray replicating the pectoral fins of live fish, undergoing a flapping motion in a viscous fluid, the performance can be significantly improved via the flexibility distribution on the rays. In present study, we investigate the propulsion capability of a 3D caudal fin undergoing a flapping motion. The embedded rays are modeled as linear springs and the soft membrane is modeled as a flexible plate being able to deform in span-wise direction. A finite-volume method based Navier-Stokes solver is used to solve the fluid-structure interaction problem. The present paper focuses on the effects of various distributions of the ray and the ray flexibilities, which can lead to different fin deformations. It is shown that the detailed ray distribution has significant influence on the propulsion performance. By distributing fin rays at the tips rather than the middle of fin, a less power expenditure is observed, leading to higher propulsion efficiency. However, larger thrust force is obtained through distributing the rays at the middle, which is attributed to larger effective flapping amplitude. Additionally, ray flexibilities also play a pivotal role in the thrust generation of the fin.