Hydromechanics of swimming propulsion. Part 3. Swimming and optimum movements of slender fish with side fins

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Abstract
This paper seeks to evaluate the swimming flow around a typical slender fish whose transverse cross-section to the rear of its maximum span section is of a lenticular shape with pointed edges, such as those of spiny fins, so that these side edges are sharp trailing edges, from which an oscillating vortex sheet is shed to trail the body in swimming. The additional feature of shedding of vortex sheet makes this problem a moderate generalization of the paper on the swimming of slender fish treated by Lighthill (1960a). It is found here that the propulsive thrust depends not only on the virtual mass of the tail-end section, but also on an integral effect of variations of the virtual mass along the entire body segment containing the trailing side edges, and that this latter effect can greatly enhance the thrust-making.