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Flow Control by Hydrofoils with Leading-Edge Tubercles

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Flow Control Through Bio-inspired Leading-Edge Tubercles

Abstract

Leveraging upon designs honed over millenniums by Mother Nature for engineering applications comes naturally to engineers who are interested in improving their performances as much as possible. In this chapter, the area of particular interest will be in marine engineering and applications that directly relate towards more efficient and better marine vessel manoeuvrability. Greater manoeuvre capabilities will bring about higher agility and better station-keeping abilities for these marine vessels. Furthermore, control surfaces tend to bring about parasitic drag , which should be kept at minimal levels for better fuel efficiency. Hence, there are significant motivations behind the notion that control surfaces could be designed based on what have already existed in nature, so as to fully exploit the potential benefits. As the use of surface vessels, unmanned underwater vehicles (UUV), autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV) and underwater gliders continue to proliferate; achieving this is especially pertinent towards better controllability and prolonged submerged times.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support provided by Singapore Ministry of Defense—Future Systems and Technology Directorate Defense Innovative Research Programme, Nanyang Technological University, Temasek Laboratories @ National University of Singapore, National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 11702173 and 41527901), and South Africa National Research Foundation CSUR (grant no. 98876).

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Correspondence to T. H. New .

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New, T.H., Wei, Z., Cui, Y.D., Ibrahim, I., Ho, W.H. (2020). Flow Control by Hydrofoils with Leading-Edge Tubercles. In: New, D., Ng, B. (eds) Flow Control Through Bio-inspired Leading-Edge Tubercles. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23792-9_4

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