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Dolphins are known for their outstanding swimming performance. However, the difference in flow physics at different speeds remains elusive. In this work, the underlying mechanisms of dolphin swimming at three speeds, 2 m/s, 5 m/s, and 8 m/s, are explored using a combined experimental and numerical approach. Using the scanned CAD model of the Atlantic white-sided dolphin (Lagenorhynchus acutus) and virtual skeleton-based surface reconstruction method, a three-dimensional high-fidelity computational model is obtained with time-varying kinematics. A sharp-interface immersed-boundary-method (IBM) based direct numerical simulation (DNS) solver is employed to calculate the corresponding thrust production, wake structure, and surface pressure at different swimming speeds. It is found that the fluke keeps its effective angle of attack at high values for about 60% of each stroke. The total pressure force coefficient along the x-axis converges as the speed increase. The flow and surface pressure analysis both show considerable differences between lower (2 m/s) and higher (5 m/s and 8 m/s) speeds. The results from this work help to bring new insight into understanding the force generation mechanisms of the highly efficient dolphin swimming and offer potential suggestions to the future designs of unmanned underwater vehicles.

Impinging jet heat transfer is a promising method to cool electronic components. In this paper, a numerical study has been carried out to examine the conjugate heat transfer under a confined impinging jet using a plate-fin heat sink as the target plate. Effects of geometric parameters such as fin number, fin height, and fin-to-spacing ratio are examined over a range of jet Reynolds numbers using dielectric fluid FC-72 as the fluid medium. Thermal resistance, pressure drop, and Nusselt number are the main criteria used to evaluate the thermal and fluid dynamic performance of this flow system. Furthermore, the effects of fin height, fin-to-spacing ratio, and jet Reynolds number on impinging jet heat transfer are obtained. The concept of an effective Nusselt number is introduced for computing the heat transfer effectiveness of heat sinks with different fin numbers.

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