Exploring propulsion performance analysis of bionic flapping hydrofoil

Bionic flapping hydrofoil underwater vehicles show obvious advantages over traditional underwater vehicles. One of the key problems in the bionic flapping hydrofoil research is the propulsion performance. Sections 1, 2 and 3 of the full paper explain the exploration mentioned in the title. Their core consists of: "The mechanism, the thrust property and propulsive efficiency of the bionic flapping hydrofoil propulsion is investigated by solving numerically the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations in a non-inertial reference frame moving with the rigid foil. First, a 2-DOF motion model of the rigid flapping foil is developed. Then the computational domain was discretized into unstructed grid within the ANSYS ICEM software. Finally, numerical computations of the flapping foil movement under various propulsion conditions were carried out by means of code Fluent.". The computational results, given in Figs.4 through 8, and their analysis demonstrate preliminarily the mechanism of flapping foil, and show preliminarily and quantitatively the relationship between the propulsion performance and the motion parameters, including inflow velocity, flapping frequency, pitch amplitude and heaving amplitude; all these can be used as useful reference in the further research of flapping foil propulsion technology. Section 4 gives some useful conclusions of the full paper.