Passive and active flow control by swimming fishes and mammals. (English) Zbl 1097.76020

Fish, F. E.; Lauder, G. V.

Davis, Stephen H. (ed.) et al., Annual review of fluid mechanics. Vol. 38. Palo Alto, CA: Annual Reviews (ISBN 0-8243-0738-0/hbk). Annu. Rev. Fluid Mech. 38, 193-224 (2006).

Summary: What mechanisms of flow control do animals use to enhance hydrodynamic performance? Animals are capable of manipulating flow around the body and appendages both passively and actively. Passive mechanisms rely on structural and morphological components of the body (i.e., humpback whale tubercles, riblets). Active flow control mechanisms use appendage or body musculature to directly generate wake flow structures or stiffen fins against external hydrodynamic loads. Fish can actively control fin curvature, displacement, and area. The vortex wake shed by the tail differs between eel-like fishes and fishes with a discrete narrowing of the body in front of the tail, and three-dimensional effects may play a major role in determining wake structure in most fishes.
For the entire collection see [Zbl 1081.76003].

MSC:

76D55	Flow control and optimization for incompressible viscous fluids
76Z05	Physiological flows
92C10	Biomechanics

Keywords:

vorticity; locomotion; digital particle image velocimetry