Biomechanics of fish swimming in a hydrokinetic turbine wake

Abstract

In the present paper, the assessment of the hydrodynamics of the fish swimming in undisturbed and altered wake-flow is carried out identifying hydrodynamical forces and flow patterns of the fish swimming wake. URANS approach with k-omega/SST turbulence model are employed combining fish and turbine in the same simulation. Fish motion is realized using dynamically adaptive mesh. The actuator line method is employed to induce the wake of a hydrokinetic turbine, which is a simplified method that requires lower computational cost than full geometry simulations. This work brings a new numerical approach involving fish and turbine wake highlighting that fish swimming in the wake presents higher thrust forces than in the undisturbed flow, due to the x-component to velocity in the wake is lower than free flow velocity.