CFD Investigation of Trout-Like Configuration Holding Station near an Obstruction

Abstract

This report presents the development of a fluid-structure interaction model using commercial Computational fluid dynamics software and in-house developed User Defined Function to simulate the motion of a trout Department of Mechanical Engineering, Widener University holding station in a moving water stream. The oscillation model used in this study is based on the observations of trout swimming in a respirometry tank in a laboratory experiment. The numerical simulations showed results that are consistent with laboratory observations of a trout holding station in the tank without obstruction and trout entrained to the side of the cylindrical obstruction. This paper will be helpful in the development of numerical models for the hydrodynamic analysis of bioinspired unmanned underwater vehicle systems.

Keywords

• swimming kinematics
• biomimetic
• fish motion
• unmanned
• UUV
• CFD