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Understanding hydrodynamics of Tuna fish hydrofoil using CFD simulations

Conference Paper · September 2017

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Abdullah Muratoglu
Batman Üniversitesi
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9th ANKARA INTERNATIONAL AEROSPACE CONFERENCE AIAC-2017-000
20-22 September 2017 - METU, Ankara TURKEY

UNDERSTANDING HYDRODYNAMICS OF TUNA FISH HYDROFOIL USING

CFD SIMULATIONS

Abdullah MURATOGLU1* and Abdurrahim MURATOGLU2

1
Batman University, Batman, Turkey
2
Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey

ABSTRACT
The main scope of this study is to understand the main hydrodynamic properties 2D body
section of Tuna fish hydrofoil. The body coordinates were written to a 2D file which is similar
to classical airfoil data files. CFD simulations of the section have been conducted by ANSYS
CFX software. The hydrodynamic properties of the hydrofoil such as lift drag and pressure
coefficients were evaluated. The velocity, pressure and turbulence kinetic energy
distributions have been illustrated. The analyses were made considering different angles of
attack and Reynolds Number. The calculated hydrodynamic characteristics have been
discussed and compared with the literature.

Keywords: Hydrofoil, Hydrodynamic, CFD, Albacore Tuna, ANSYS CFX

INTRODUCTION
The most efficient and optimum designs are found in nature. Many scientists and engineer
has successfully transferred natural phenomenon to science and technology. 2D sections of
airfoil and hydrofoils are employed in many areas such as turbomachinery, aircrafts and
other air and marine vehicles. The blade sections have also been used by birds and fishes
since thousands of years. Authors believe that, the efficiency of engineering devices could be
increased and technical problems could be solved by mimicking flying and swimming animals
and insects.

Albacore tuna (Thunnus alalunga) is one of the high speed fish species. According to
biological reports; Its cruising speed is around 6-8 m/s with Re number greater than 1x106.
Its burst speed can exceed 10 m/s with ten times of cruising Re (Figure 1). The main reason
behind concentrating on Albacore tuna in this study is their well streamlined body and
simplicity of their body hydrofoil which can be easily obtained by excluding its fins and finlets.

The caudial, pectoral, anal, dorsal and pelvic fins together with finlets have been removed
from a real scale albacore tuna fish surface (Figure 2). The images were imported to an

1*
Assist. Prof. in Department of Civil Engineering, Email: abdullah.muratoglu@batman.edu.tr (corresponding
author)
2
GRA in Department of Aerospace Engineering, Email: moglu@metu.edu.tr
AIAC-2017-000 Muratoglu & Muratoglu

image processing software (MATLAB) and the hydrofoil has been generated fitting 3 rd degree
B-spline curve using 15 control points. The coordinates of the section has been normalized
and digitalized. Than the hydrofoil data file has been obtained for further processing.

Figure 1: Re number vs. swimming speed of various fish species [Bone and Moore, 2008]
(Open circle: Cruising speed, closed circle: Burst speed)

Figure 2: Albacore tuna (left, image courtesy of Diane Rome Peebles at igfa.org) and the
hydrofoil generated from the image (right)

METHOD
Hydrofoil generation from B-spline curves
Will be given at full text.

CFD analysis theory

Will be given at full text.

CFD SIMULATIONS
Geometry and grid generation
ANSYS Geometry and Meshing tools have been used at the pre-processing stage. An
approximate number of 90000 nodes and elements have been generated. Advanced size
function properties have been used in order to increase the number of cells near the hydrofoil
wall (Figure 3). The solution domain has been assigned to be 20 times of the hydrofoil chord
length.

Ankara International Aerospace Conference

AIAC-2017-000 Muratoglu & Muratoglu

Figure 3: Quadrilateral grid around hydrofoil

CFD Solution
Velocity inlet, pressure outlet and symmetry planes have been assigned as boundaries. The
hydrofoil wall has been defined as no sleep wall with smooth roughness. SST k-ε turbulence
model with automatic wall function was utilized. The solutions have been converged below
10-5.
The simulations have been conducted for various range of Re number and angle of attack.
The lift and drag coefficients for different Re numbers are given in Table 1. The lift and drag
coefficient distributions for various angles of attacks at Re=1 million is are given in Figure 4.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

Discussion will be given at full text.

Table 1: Lift and drag coefficients of TFH at different

Reynolds number (α=10°)
Re Cl Cd
50,000 0.54 0.05
100,000 0.69 0.04
1,000,000 0.89 0.03
10,000,000 0.94 0.02

1 0,2

0,8
Drag coefficient
Lift coefficient

0,15
0,6
0,1
0,4

0,2 0,05

0 0
0 5 10 15 20 0 10 20
Angle of attack Angle of attack
Figure 4: Lift and drag coefficient distribution at Re=1 million

Ankara International Aerospace Conference

AIAC-2017-000 Muratoglu & Muratoglu

2 2
1 1
0 0

Pressure coefficient
Pressure coefficient

-1 0 0,2 0,4 0,6 0,8 1 0 0,2 0,4 0,6 0,8 1

-1
-2
-2
-3
-3
-4 α=0° Re=50000
α=5° -4 Re=100000
-5
α=10° -5 Re=1000000
-6 Re=10000000
α=15°
-7 -6
Normalized chord Normalized chord

Figure 5. Pressure coefficient distributions for various attack angle and Re number

Figure 6. Velocity distributions around hydrofoil

Figure 7: Pressure distributions around hydrofoil

Ankara International Aerospace Conference

 AIAC-2017-000 Muratoglu & Muratoglu

Figure 8: Turbulence kinetic energy distributions around hydrofoil

CONCLUSION

References
Bone, Q. and Moore, R.H. (2008) Biology of Fishes, Taylor and Francis, e-book.
Muratoglu, Abdullah, and M. Ishak Yuce. (2017) Design of a River Hydrokinetic Turbine
Using Optimization and CFD Simulations. Journal of Energy Engineering: 04017009.

Yuce, M. Ishak, and Muratoglu A. (2015) Hydrokinetic energy conversion systems: a

technology status review. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 43: 72-82.

Ahmed, M. Rafiuddin (2012) Blade Sections for Wind Turbine and Tidal Current Turbine
Applications—Current Status and Future Challenges, International Journal of Energy
Research 36.7: 829-844.

Goundar, Jai N., and M. Rafiuddin Ahmed (2013) Design of a horizontal axis tidal current
turbine, Applied energy 111: 161-174.

Molland, A. F., et al. (2004) Measurements and predictions of forces, pressures and
cavitation on 2-D sections suitable for marine current turbines, Proceedings of the Institution
of Mechanical Engineers, Part M: Journal of Engineering for the Maritime Environment 218.2:
127-138.

Batten, W. M. J., et al. (2008) The prediction of the hydrodynamic performance of marine
current turbines." Renewable energy 33.5: 1085-1096.

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