Minimization of Hydrodynamic Power Losses in Oscillating Submerged Structures by a Novel Shape-Morphing Strategy

In this paper, we investigate the two dimensional fluid-structure interaction problem of the oscillation of a shape-morphing plate in a quiescent, Newtonian, viscous fluid. The plate is considered as a moving wall for the fluid undergoing two concurrent periodic motions: a rigid oscillation along its transverse direction coupled to a shape-morphing deformation to an arc of a circle with prescribed maximum curvature. Differently from studies concerned with passive flexible structures, here, we introduce the prescribed deformation to specifically manipulate vortex-shedding and modulate hydrodynamic forces and energy losses during underwater oscillations. Computational fluid dynamics simulations are performed to evaluate the effect of the prescribed deformation strategy on the added mass and damping effect along with the hydrodynamic power dissipation. We observe that a minimum in the hydrodynamic power dissipation exists for an optimum curvature of the plate. This finding may allow significant power expenditure reduction in underwater vibrating systems where minimization of energy losses or maximization of quality factor are desirable.