Propulsion Force Characteristics of Propulsion Mechanism Imitating Bending-movement Organisms in Water

Abstract

The application of dynamics of the living organism to the field of engineering is very instructive. To make an artificial bending-wave propulsion mechanism, a propulsion mechanism imitating the bending motion of organisms in water was developed. As the bending motion, a swimming snake's motion was employed. The bending wave of the organism was changed into a construction of the multilink mechanism. This model was defined as the "multilink imitated model". As the bending curve of the model, the serpenoid curve and sine curve were adopted. The thrust force of the model was measured. The characteristics of the thrust force with change in the ratio amplitude/wave-length, the frequency, the number of links and the bending curve were discussed.