Abstract
This paper describes the unsteady flow around a mechanical pectoral fin. An unsteady, multiblock, overlapping grid Navier-Stokes equation solver is developed to solve this problem. The drag-based swimming mode, which consists of rowing, flapping, and feathering motions, was selected as the fin motion. The unsteady flow past the fin body model that has same motions was computed and compared with the experiments of the mechanical pectoral fin. The numerical time-averaged and time-varied hydrodynamic forces are in good agreement with the measured data.
