Abstract
This paper presents a finite difference scheme for solving incompressible viscous flow around an arbitrary oscillating body. This scheme is an extension of the SMAC method to a moving curvilinear coordinate grid. The scheme comprises two stages. At stage one, the new time step velocity is calculated in the old time step coordinates. At stage two, this calculated velocity is reobserved in terms of the new time step coordinates (rezoning). This scheme is applied to calculation of two-dimensional flow around an oscillating flat plate, which is a fundamental model of the fin movement of certain kinds of fish or cetaceans or the flutter of an airplane wing. The solution is compared with that from the discrete vortex method. In particular, the characteristics of thrust and propulsive efficiency of the oscillating flat plate as a propulsion mechanism show good agreement with those from the discrete vortex method.
