Tuna-Like Swimmers Experience a Fluid-Mediated Stable Side-by-Side Formation
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2025
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| _version_ | 1866911328336084992 |
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| author | Ormonde, Pedro C. Stasolla, Matthew Menzer, Alec Zhu, Joseph Bart-Smith, Hilary Dong, Haibo Moored, Keith W. |
| author_facet | Ormonde, Pedro C. Stasolla, Matthew Menzer, Alec Zhu, Joseph Bart-Smith, Hilary Dong, Haibo Moored, Keith W. |
| contents | New free-swimming experiments and simulations are conducted on a pair of three-dimensional, bio-robotic swimmers composed of a body and tail section based on Yellowfin tuna, Thunnus albacares. It is discovered that the pair converges spontaneously to a side-by-side schooling formation that is stable to perturbations in the swimming direction at a fixed lateral spacing. We reveal that for close lateral spacings of 43% of the body length and thick, tuna-like bodies with a 22% thickness-to-length ratio, the flow between the swimmers is accelerated in a "channeling effect" due to flow constriction. Consequently, this creates a low-pressure zone that is the primary mechanism generating a fluid-mediated restorative force, thereby making the side-by-side formation hydrodynamically stable. This quasi-steady mechanism makes the stability of the formation insensitive to the phase synchronization between the bio-robots in contrast to previous results for schooling foils. Moreover, in the side-by-side formation tunalike swimmers are seen to have only a small reduction in their swimming speed and a concurrent small rise in their cost of transport. By leveraging this channeling effect, bio-robotic schools may be able to maintain a schooling formation with little or no control. This flow mechanism may also be present in biological schools of tuna-like fish where it may sculpt the formations observed in nature. |
| format | Preprint |
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arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_17888 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Tuna-Like Swimmers Experience a Fluid-Mediated Stable Side-by-Side Formation Ormonde, Pedro C. Stasolla, Matthew Menzer, Alec Zhu, Joseph Bart-Smith, Hilary Dong, Haibo Moored, Keith W. Fluid Dynamics 76Z10, 76M45, 74F10 New free-swimming experiments and simulations are conducted on a pair of three-dimensional, bio-robotic swimmers composed of a body and tail section based on Yellowfin tuna, Thunnus albacares. It is discovered that the pair converges spontaneously to a side-by-side schooling formation that is stable to perturbations in the swimming direction at a fixed lateral spacing. We reveal that for close lateral spacings of 43% of the body length and thick, tuna-like bodies with a 22% thickness-to-length ratio, the flow between the swimmers is accelerated in a "channeling effect" due to flow constriction. Consequently, this creates a low-pressure zone that is the primary mechanism generating a fluid-mediated restorative force, thereby making the side-by-side formation hydrodynamically stable. This quasi-steady mechanism makes the stability of the formation insensitive to the phase synchronization between the bio-robots in contrast to previous results for schooling foils. Moreover, in the side-by-side formation tunalike swimmers are seen to have only a small reduction in their swimming speed and a concurrent small rise in their cost of transport. By leveraging this channeling effect, bio-robotic schools may be able to maintain a schooling formation with little or no control. This flow mechanism may also be present in biological schools of tuna-like fish where it may sculpt the formations observed in nature. |
| title | Tuna-Like Swimmers Experience a Fluid-Mediated Stable Side-by-Side Formation |
| topic | Fluid Dynamics 76Z10, 76M45, 74F10 |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.17888 |