Propulsion performance of spanwise flexible wing using unsteady panel method

In this paper propulsion performance of a spanwise flexible oscillating wing which is broadly similar to undulation of fin fluke is investigated. The geometry of the fluke was simultaneously undergoing of three harmonic oscillating motion while surging with constant velocity. The effect of deflection phase angle, flexibility parameter and wing tip deflection amplitude in thrust coefficient and swimming efficiency was studied. A low order unsteady panel method coupling with a time stepping algorithm for free wake alignment is implemented into a computer program to estimate propulsion efficiency of lifting bodies. This is an efficient method to accelerate computational speed via reducing the order of problem from R3 to body boundaries. The results present the significant effect of phase angle in propulsion characteristics of oscillating fluke.