A generalized slender-body theory for fish-like forms

Abstract

A consistent slender-body approximation is developed for the flow past a fish- like body with arbitrary combinations of body thickness and low-aspect-ratio fin appendages, but with the fins confined to the plane of symmetry of the body. Attention is focused on the interaction of the fin lifting surfaces with the body thickness, and especially on the dynamics of the vortex sheets shed from the fin trailing edges. This vorticity is convected by the (non-lifting) flow past the stretched-straight body, and departs significantly from the purely longitudinal orientation of conventional lifting-surface theory. Explicit results are given for axisymmetric bodies having fins with abrupt trailing edges, and calculations of the total lift force are presented for bodies with symmetric and asymmetric fin configurations, moving with a constant angle of attack.