Numerical simulations of self-propelled swimming of 3D bionic fish school

Numerical simulations of self-propelled swimming of a three dimensional bionic fish and fish school in a viscous fluid are carried out. This is done with the assistance of a parallel software package produced for 3D moving boundary problems. This computational fluid dynamics package combines the adaptive multi-grid finite volume method, the immersed boundary method and VOF (volume of fluid) method. By using the package results of the self-propelled swimming of a 3D bionic fish and fish school in a viscous fluid are obtained. With comparison to the existing experimental measurements of living fishes, the predicted structure of vortical wakes is in good agreement with the measurements. Supported by the Key Project of National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 10532040)