Study on hydrodynamics of a bionic flapping hydrofoil

In this paper, the hydrodynamic performances of unsteady flapping foil were studied by panel method based on potential flow theory. The flapping foil had a coupling motion of rolling and pitching. The calculation process of panel method was realized by the FORTRAN procedure. The calculation results of average thrust coefficient by the procedure accordance well with the MIT experiment data. Then the FLUENT software was applied and the results also compared well with the experiment data. The results of other hydrodynamic coefficients by panel method compared well with those by the FLUENT software. So the procedure for panel method was considered available. The thrust coefficient, the lift coefficient and the propulsion efficiency of the unsteady flapping foil were obtained. Then the effects of some parameters including the incoming velocity, the flapping amplitude, the phase difference and the oscillating frequency to the hydrodynamic performances were investigated.