Towards a better knowledge of the flow around rowing blade
Résumé
Study of rowing involves hydrodynamics twice: for the hull and for the oar blades. However, describe the unsteady 3D flow around blades moving with 6 D.O.F. at the end of a flexible shaft and including violent free surface deformation, is the most challenging task. To gain knowledge about this flow, both experimental and numerical studies have been started for a decade at the Laboratory of Fluid Mechanics (LMF) of Ecole Centrale Nantes. The experimental activity involves in-situ measurements using instrumented boats and tests in towing tank at LMF using a dedicated device that reproduces simplified rowing strokes but giving accurate and repeatable measurements. The numerical studies are based on unsteady CFD simulations carried out using an in-house RANS solver with advanced methods such as automatic grid refinement to capture accurately the free surface evolution. The pursued objective is to use experimental results as a reference database to validate the numerical simulations. When validated, simulations become a useful and trusty tool to undertake parametric studies in real situations easier than with experimentation. They also permit to improve the parametric models used for the fluid forces in the simulators of rowing systems. So, empirical indications could be replaced by objective criteria for the choice of oars and settings and also, in the future, for optimization of the rowing style.
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