In this study, the hydrodynamic interactions between two tandem foils undergoing fishlike swimming motion are investigated numerically by solving the Navier–Stokes equations with the immersed-boundary method. The two foils represent two tandem propellers attached on a concept ship. The thrusts and efficiencies at three typical Strouhal numbers, i.e., $\mathrm{St}=0.4$ , 0.6, and 0.8, are investigated. The results show that a fish situated directly behind another one does not always undergo a lower thrust. Whether it experiences a thrust enhancement or reduction depends on the Strouhal number. At a relatively low Strouhal number (e.g., $\mathrm{St}=0.4$ ), the usual wake drag-reduction effect predominates over the drag-enhancement effect caused by the reverse von Kármán vortices, resulting in a thrust enhancement. The opposite happens at a relatively high Strouhal number (e.g., $\mathrm{St}=0.8$ ). The downstream fish can benefit from the upstream one by slalom between the vortices rather than through them. For the upstream fish, the thrusts and efficiencies for all Strouhal numbers studied are higher than those for a single fish when the two fish are closely spaced, and approach those for a single fish as the spacing is increased.

We study numerically the propulsive wakes produced by a flapping foil. Both pure pitching and pure heaving motions are considered, respectively, at a fixed Reynolds number of Re = 1700. As the major innovation of this paper, we find an interesting coincidence that the efficiency maximum agrees well with the 2D-3D transition boundary, by plotting the contours of propulsive efficiency in the frequency-amplitude parametric space and comparing to the transition boundaries. Although there is a lack of direct 3D simulations, it is reasonable to conjecture that the propulsive efficiency increases with Strouhal number until the wake transits from a 2D state to a 3D state. By comparing between the pure pitching motion and the pure heaving motion, we find that the 2D-3D transition occurs earlier for the pure heaving foil than that of the pure pitching foil. Consequently, the efficiency for the pure heaving foil peaks more closely to the wake deflection boundary than that of the pure pitching foil. Furthermore, since we have drawn the maps on the same parametric space with the same Reynolds number, it is possible to make a direct comparison in the propulsive efficiency between a pure pitching foil and a pure heaving foil. We note that the maximum efficiency for a pure pitching foil is 15.6%, and that of a pure heaving foil is 17%, indicating that the pure heaving foil has a slightly better propulsive performance than that of the pure pitching foil for the currently studied Reynolds number.

The inertia plays a significant role in the response of a system undergoing flow-induced vibrations, which has been extensively investigated by previous researchers. However, the inertial effects of an energy harvester employing the mechanism of flow-induced vibrations have attracted little attention. This paper concentrates on a semi-passive energy extraction system considering its inertial effects. The incompressible Navier-Stokes equations are solved using a finite-volume based numerical solver with a moving grid technique. A partitioned method is used to couple the fluid and structure motions with the sub-iteration technique and an Aitken relaxation, which guarantees a strong fluid-structure coupling. In addition, a fictitious mass is added to resolve the numerical instability aroused by low density ratios. First, at a fixed mass ratio of r = 1, we identify an optimal set of parameters, at which a maximum efficiency of η = 34% is achieved. Further studies with r ranging from 0.125 to 100 are performed around the optimal parameters. The results show that for the semi-passive flapping energy harvester, the energy harvesting efficiency decreases monotonically with increasing mass ratio. We also notice that the total power extraction stays at a high level with little variation for r < 10; therefore, if we concern more about the amount of power extraction rather than its efficiency, the inertial effects can be neglectable for r < 10. Moreover, since one degree of freedom is released for the semi-passive system, it is possible for the system to automatically determine its optimal operational parameters. We note that the optimal phase difference ϕ = 82° has been well determined, which leads to a good timing of vortex-foil interactions. We note two different trends on phase difference for the effects of reduced frequency and mass ratio, respectively. By varying the reduced frequency f^∗, an optimal f^∗ is identified, at which the minimum phase difference is achieved. While the relationship between phase difference and mass ratio is monotonic, a maximum phase difference is achieved at the nearly zero mass ratio. Nevertheless, both trends point to the same optimal phase difference, i.e., ϕ = 82° at θ₀ = 75°. Furthermore, the relationship between the leading edge vortex and the phase difference is systematically investigated, accounting for the physical reason of existence of the optimal phase difference.