SYNOPSIS.The understanding of fish maneuvering and its application to underwater rigid bodies are considered. The goal is to gain insight into stealth. The recent progress made in NUWC is reviewed. Fish morphology suggests that control fins for maneuverability have unique scalar relationships irrespective of their speed type. Maneuvering experiments are carried out with fish that are fast yet maneuverable. The gap in maneuverability between fish and small underwater vehicles is quantified. The hydrodynamics of a dorsal fin based brisk maneuvering device and a dual flapping foil device, as applied to rigid cylindrical bodies, are described. The role of pectoral wings in maneuvering and station keeping near surface waves is discussed. A pendulum model of dolphin swimming is presented to show that body length and tail flapping frequency are related. For nearly neutrally buoyant bodies, Froude number and maneuverability are related. Analysis of measurements indicates that the Strouhal number of dolphins is a constant. The mechanism of discrete and deterministic vortex shedding from oscillating control surfaces has the property of large amplitude unsteady forcing and an exquisite phase dependence, which makes it inherently amenable to active control for precision maneuvering. Theoretical control studies are carried out to demonstrate the feasibility of maneuverability of biologically inspired bodies under surface waves. The application of fish hydrodynamics to the silencing of propulsors is considered. Two strategies for the reduction of radiated noise are developed. The effects of a reduction of rotational rate are modeled. The active cambering of blades made of digitally programmable artificial muscles, and their thrust enhancement, are demonstrated. Next, wake momentum filling is carried out by artificial muscles at the trailing edge of a stator blade of an upstream stator propulsor, and articulating them like a fish tail. A reduction of radiated noise, called blade tonals, is demonstrated theoretically. FIG. 1. Definition of length scales of a fish. FIG. 2. Morphology of dorsal fins of fish families.

A reduction in skin friction drag is shown when gas is introduced into the liquid turbulent boundary layer of a submerged axisymmetric body. The 89 mm diameter, 632 mm long body has a cylindrical balance 273 mm long. Free stream speeds in the 305 mm diameter tunnel are as high as 17 m/sec, giving length Reynolds number of up to 10 million. In general, skin friction reduction is shown to increase with increasing free stream speed. At high speeds, helium injection is shown to be more effective at reducing skin friction than is air injection. Maximum skin friction reduction is near 80%—a value in good agreement with the maximum value observed in the flat plate work of Madavan et al. [Phys. Fluids 27, 356 (1984)]. While maximum skin friction reduction was found at a free stream speed of 5 m/sec for the flat plate geometry, maximum skin friction reduction was at a free stream speed of 17 m/sec for the axisymmetric geometry.

The unsteady hydrodynamics of the tail flapping and head oscillation of a fish, and their phased interaction, are considered in a laboratory simulation. Two experiments are described where the motion of a pair of rigid flapping foils in the tail and the swaying of the forebody are simulated on a rigid cylinder. Two modes of tail flapping are considered: waving and clapping. Waving is similar to the motion of the caudal fin of a fish. The clapping motion of wings is a common mechanism for the production of lift and thrust in the insect world, particularly in butterflies and moths. Measurements carried out include dynamic forces and moments on the entire cylinder-control surface model, phase-matched laser Doppler velocimetry maps of vorticity-velocity vectors in the axial and cross-stream planes of the near-wake, as well as dye flow visualization. The mechanism of flapping foil propulsion and maneuvering is much richer than reported before. They can be classified as natural or forced. This work is of the latter type where discrete vortices are forced to form at the trailing edge of flapping foils via salient edge separation. The transverse wake vortices that are shed, follow a path that is wider than that given by the tangents to the flapping foils. The unsteady flap-tip axial vortex decays rapidly. Significant higher order effects appear when Strouhal number (St) of tail flapping foils is above 0.15. Efficiency, defined as the ratio of output power of the flapping foils to the power input to the actuators, reaches a peak below the St range of 0.25–0.35. Understanding of two-dimensional flapping foils and fish reaching their peak efficiency in that range is clarified. Strouhal number of tail flapping does emerge as an important parameter governing the production of net axial force and efficiency, although it is by no means the only one. The importance of another Strouhal number based on body length and its natural frequency is also indicated. The relationship between body length and tail flapping frequency is shown to be present in dolphin swimming data. The implication is that, for aquatic animals, the longitudinal structural modes of the body and the head/tail vortex shedding process are coupled. The phase variation of a simulated and minute head swaying, can modulate axial thrust produced by the tail motion, within a narrow range of ±5 percent. The general conclusion is that, the mechanism of discrete and deterministic vortex shedding from oscillating control surfaces has the property of large amplitude unsteady forcing and an exquisite phase dependence, which makes it inherently amenable to active control for precision maneuvering. [S0098-2202(00)00102-4]

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