The role of vortices in animal locomotion in fluids

Authors

  • Rudolf Dvořák Institute of Thermomechanics, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic

Keywords:

animal locomotion, bird flight, flapping wings, insect flight, swimming, walking on water, vortices in animal propulsion

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to show the significance of vortices in animal locomotion in fluids on two deliberately chosen examples. The first example concerns lift generation by bird and insect wings, the second example briefly mentiones swimming and walking on water. In all the examples, the vortices generated by the moving animal impart the necessary momentum to the surrounding fluid, the reaction to which is the force moving or lifting the animal.

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Published

31-Dec-2014

Issue

Vol. 8 No. 2 (2014)

Section

Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2016 Applied and Computational Mechanics

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

“The role of vortices in animal locomotion in fluids” (2014) Applied and Computational Mechanics, 8(2). Available at: https://acm.kme.zcu.cz//article/view/250 (Accessed: 24 May 2025).