Numerical study of a pitching and heaving hydrofoil

A computational fluid dynamics study of the swimming efficiency of a two dimensional flapping hydrofoil is described. The model accounts fully for viscous effects that are particularly important when flow separation occurs. The model uses an Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) method to track the moving boundaries of oscillatory and flapping bodies and is limited to a Reynolds number of 1100. A parametric analysis is presented of the variables that affect the motion of the hydrofoil as it moves through the flow along with flow visualisations in an attempt to quantify and qualify the effect that these variables have on the performance of the hydrofoil.