The three-dimensional flows in the Weis-Fogh mechanism are studied by flow visualization and numerical simulation by a discrete vortex method. In this mechanism, two wings open, touching their trailing edges (fling), and rotate in opposite directions in the horizontal plane. At the “fling” stage, the flow separates at the leading edge and the tip of each wing. Then they rotate, and the flow separates also at the trailing edges. The structure of the vortex systems shed from the wings is very complicated and their effect on the forces on the wings have not yet been clarified. Discrete vortex method, especially the vortex stick method, is employed to investigate the vortex structure in the wake of the two wings. The wings are represented by lattice vortices, and the shed vortices are expressed by discrete three-dimensional vortex sticks. In this calculation, the GRAPE3A hardware is used to calculate at high speed the induced velocity of the vortex sticks and the viscous diffusion of fluid is represented by the random walk method. The vortex distributions and the velocity field are calculated. The pressure is estimated by the Bernoulli equation, and the lift and moment on the wing are also obtained. However, the simulations, especially those for various Reynolds numbers, should be treated with caution, because there is no measurement to compare them with and the discrete vortex method is approximate due to rudimentary modeling of viscosity.

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The dynamic properties of a ship’s two-stage “Weis-Fogh” type propulsion mechanism are experimentally and numerically investigated. In order to study the effects of the interaction of the two wings, the wings are designed in a manner that enable them to move close to each other. The opening angle and the moving speed are the same for both wings. Two cases of the phase differences of the wings’ motions are considered, the in-phase case and the out-of-phase case. The differences of the dynamic properties between the two wings are shown and the properties of this propulsion mechanism are discussed.

The velocity and pressure field of a ship’s Weis-Fogh-type propulsion mechanism are studied in this paper using an advanced vortex method. The wing (NACA0010 airfoil) and channel are approximated by source and vortex panels, and free vortices are introduced away from the body surfaces. The viscous diffusion of fluid is represented using the core-spreading model to the discrete vortices. The velocity is calculated on the basis of the generalized Biot-Savart law and the pressure field is calculated from an integral, based on the instantaneous velocity and vorticity distributions in the flow field. Two-dimensional unsteady viscous flow calculations of this propulsion mechanism are shown, and the calculated results agree qualitatively with the measured thrust and drag due to unmodeled large fluctuations in the measured data.