Hydrodynamics of Fish Locomotion Research

While still an undergraduate student at the Illinois Institute of Technology I participated in the Texas A&M University’s Aerospace Engineering Undergraduate Research Program in the summer of 2014 under Dr. Sharath Girimaji. The inspiration for my work came from the way that fish travel in water with the undulations of their elongated bodies. On the premise of biomimicry I completed research into the hydrodynamics of fish locomotion using computational fluid dynamics simulations of a simple undulatory plate model. Continued work into this research could be applicable to the development of new propulsion technologies for craft such as submarines and airships that are neutrally buoyant within the fluids that they traverse.