Analysis on swimming behavior of dolphin with artificial tail flukes

Abstract

Dolphins have high propulsion and maneuvering performances. Dolphin's tail flukes play an important role to generate propulsive force. We paid attention to a dolphin that lost most part of its tail flukes by disease kept in an aquarium, Okinawa, Japan. The dolphin could swim by attaching artificial tail flukes as well as a normal dolphin. The objective of this study is to discuss the effectiveness of the artificial tail flukes for the swimming of the dolphin by estimating the propulsive forces obtained theoretically using data on the behavior of the tail flukes and swimming number. Copyright © 2011 by the International Society of Offshore and Polar Engineers (ISOPE).