屈曲形水中推進機構の研究 : 第1報, 3関節モデルの機構・流体連成系解析法の提案と実験的検証

抄録

Although analytical and experimental studies on the bending propulsion mechanism of fish or cetaceans have been done by many researchers, the reasons for high speed and high efficiency of the animals' bending propulsion motion have not been clarified, probably because the dynamic interaction between mechanism and fluid has not been taken into account. This paper proposes an analytical method for a coupled system of mechanism and fluid dynamics in a bending propulsion mechanism, based on the discrete vortex method. We analytically and experimentally investigate the characteristics of the propulsion speed of a three-joint bending propulsion mechanism. It is found that the propulsion speed takes a maximum value when all phase differences of joints are about zero for four amplitude patterns in both the theory and experiment. The experimental propulsion speeds are found to be 65∼80 percent of the analytical ones.