Design of a biomimetic fish caudal drive via Macro Fiber Composite

Abstract

According to the technology of the body-and-caudal fin drive, a novel design of biomimetic caudal drive is proposed in this paper. The drive is a two-layer laminated plate that is composed of Macro Fiber Composite (MFC) and a substrate of variable stiffness. When the material of the substrate is glass fiber epoxy reinforced composites, the biggest displacement of the terminal is 4mm in the air and 1.97mm under the water, and when the material is glass fiber composites of polyurethane, the biggest displacement is 2.39mm in the air. Therefore, the experiments verify the feasibility of the design and the significance of the substrate's stiffness for the drive of the caudal fin.