R&D Knowledge Sharing Session on Fluid Mechanics of Fish Swimming

The Department of Mechanical Engineering held a Knowledge Sharing Session, under the R&D cell on  December 5, 2020 from 4.00 pm to 5.00 pm. The session was delivered by Dr. Pravin Verekar on the topic of Fluid Mechanics of Fish Swimming. Dr. Verekar introduced the topic with the motivation behind study in developing autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV) and swimming robots that could mimic the fish swimming mechanics. Dr. Verekar gave a brief overview on hydrodynamics and associated forces like drag, lift and acceleration reaction forces that required to be understood. He discussed the periodic and transient movements in swimming and the Body and caudal fin (BCF) and Median and paired fin (MPF) propulsions employed by fish. Further, he also explained the undulatory and oscillatory fin motion associated with different fish. The drag and thrust produced from the karman and reverse karman wakes generated by the body and the tail of the fish were explained and demonstrated with videos of the wakes produced by aerofoil flapping in water. Dr. Verekar also discussed on research studies on fish swimming through flow visualization techniques, particle image velocimetry and computational fluid dynamics. The session was attended by faculty from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and coordinated by Prof Mayur Shetti.