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Experiments in Fluids

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01-12-2009 | Research Article

Swimming performance of a biomimetic compliant fish-like robot

Authors: Brenden P. Epps, Pablo Valdivia y Alvarado, Kamal Youcef-Toumi, Alexandra H. Techet

Published in: Experiments in Fluids | Issue 6/2009

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Abstract

Digital particle image velocimetry and fluorescent dye visualization are used to characterize the performance of fish-like swimming robots. During nominal swimming, these robots produce a ‘V’-shaped double wake, with two reverse-Kármán streets in the far wake. The Reynolds number based on swimming speed and body length is approximately 7500, and the Strouhal number based on flapping frequency, flapping amplitude, and swimming speed is 0.86. It is found that swimming speed scales with the strength and geometry of a composite wake, which is constructed by freezing each vortex at the location of its centroid at the time of shedding. Specifically, we find that swimming speed scales linearly with vortex circulation. Also, swimming speed scales linearly with flapping frequency and the width of the composite wake. The thrust produced by the swimming robot is estimated using a simple vortex dynamics model, and we find satisfactory agreement between this estimate and measurements made during static load tests.

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The listed minimum and maximum flapping frequencies that bound each regime correspond to frequencies tested in the PIV experiments. The precise frequencies that bound the regimes were not determined.

Recall, ‘wake width’ is defined as the lateral distance between vortex centroids, across the composite wake.

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Title: Swimming performance of a biomimetic compliant fish-like robot
Authors: Brenden P. Epps
Pablo Valdivia y Alvarado
Kamal Youcef-Toumi
Alexandra H. Techet
Publication date: 01-12-2009
Publisher: Springer-Verlag
Published in: Experiments in Fluids / Issue 6/2009
Print ISSN: 0723-4864
Electronic ISSN: 1432-1114
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00348-009-0684-8

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