Untethered bio-inspired helical swimmer in channels

Official URL: http://192.168.1.20/record=b1306380 (Table of Contents)

This study focuses on analyzing the effects of parameters such as helical pitch, helical wavelength, and frequency of rotations and diameter of channels on the measured velocity of helix and rotation rate of the body. The first stage of this study is macro design of robots with helical tails. The fundamentals of the design are mainly based on the criteria that affect the robots' motion. The second purpose of the thesis is applying the resistive force theory (RFT) to analyze the effects of swimming parameters and diameter of channels on the velocity of helix and rotation rate of body, analytically. This theoretical model is developed for six degree-of-freedom motion of the helix but two degree-of-freedom motion results are considered because only forward speed and body rotation rates are observable from experiments. The third stage of this study is analyzing the effect of swimming parameters and the diameter of channel on the swimming motion of the swimmer with helical tail by means of CFD (computational fluid dynamics) models. In the last stage, the experimental results are compared with RFT and CFD models.