Stefan Hochstein

Vortex re-capturing and kinematics in human underwater undulatory swimming.

To maximize swimming speed athletes copy fish undulatory swimming during the underwater period after start and turn. The anatomical limitations may lead to deviations and may enforce compensating strategies. This has been investigated by analyzing the kinematics of two national female swimmers while swimming in a still water pool. Additionally, the flow around and behind the swimmers was measured with the aid of time-resolved particle image velocimetry (TR-2D-PIV). As compared to fish, the swimmers used undulatory waves characterized by much higher Strouhal numbers but very similar amplitude distributions along the body and Froude efficiencies. Vortices generated in the region of strongly flexing joints are suitable to be used pedally to enhance propulsion (vortex re-capturing). Complementing studies using numerical and technical modeling will help us to probe the efficiency of observed mechanisms and further improvements of the human strategy.

Unsteady flow phenomena in human undulatory swimming: a numerical approach

The undulatory underwater sequence is one of the most important phases in competitive swimming. An understanding of the recurrent vortex dynamics around the human body and their generation could therefore be used to improve swimming techniques. In order to produce a dynamic model, we applied human joint kinematics to three-dimensional (3D) body scans of a female swimmer. The flow around this dynamic model was then calculated using computational fluid dynamics with the aid of moving 3D meshes. Evaluation of the numerical results delivered by the various motion cycles identified characteristic vortex structures for each of the cycles, which exhibited increasing intensity and drag influence. At maximum thrust, drag forces appear to be 12 times higher than those of a passive gliding swimmer. As far as we know, this is the first disclosure of vortex rings merging into vortex tubes in the wake after vortex recapturing. All unsteady structures were visualized using a modified Q-criterion also incorporated into our methods. At the very least, our approach is likely to be suited to further studies examining swimmers engaging in undulatory swimming during training or competition.

Experimental and numerical investigation of the unsteady flow around a human underwater undulating swimmer

Underwater undulatory swimming describes one of the fastest modes of human aquatic locomotion. The human swimmer can be considered as natural paradigm for technical segmented linkage systems used in robotics that must compensate its anatomical limitations through sophisticated kinetics. In order to reveal and evaluate such mechanisms the flow around and behind the swimmer was measured by tim-resolved particle image velocimetry (TR-2D-PIV) and simulated by computational fluid dynamics (CFD). In comparison to fish, despite of joint asymmetries the swimmers used undulatory waves characterized by very similar absolute amplitude distributions along the body but at much higher Strouhal numbers. The observed 3D-patterns revealed in the CFD helps us to newly interpret experimental findings. Both the experimental flow field as well as that obtained from CFD document the effect of flow preformation and vortex re-capturing. We propose that the use of high Strouhal numbers facilitates the re-capture of vortices unavoidable due the disadvantageous geometry of the human swimmer.

Body movement distribution with respect to swimmer’s glide position in human underwater undulatory swimming

Human swimmers use undulatory motions similar to fish locomotion to attain high speeds. The human body is a non-smooth multi-body linkage system with restricted flexibility and is not primarily adapted to motion in the water. Due to anatomical limitations, the human swimmer is forced to deviate from the symmetric fish-like motion and to adjust his motion to his limited abilities. The goal of this paper is to investigates the movement of ten swimmers during human underwater undulatory in a still water pool and to find out to what extent the human swimmer approaches an ideal undulatory wave which is symmetric with respect to the extended gliding position. Therefore, it is necessary to (i) to ascertain the magnitude of the normalized dorsal, ventral and total amplitudes of the undulatory movements, (ii) to examine the distribution and symmetry/asymmetry of the dorsal, ventral and total amplitudes along the length of the swimming body, and (iii) to compare the differences in amplitude distribution and other indicators between different skill levels. The amplitude distribution of the dorsal and ventral deflection along the body (related to the swimmers stretched position) is highly asymmetric. Skilled swimmers swim with a more linear body wave and use a smaller range of envelop than less skilled swimmers. The durations of the up and down kicks show only minor differences. The down kick is slightly faster than the up kick. Although the down kick is more powerful than the up kick, the hip marker shows almost the same average swimming speed in both half-cycles.

Assessment of physical activity of the human body considering the thermodynamic system.

Correctly dosed physical activity is the basis of a vital and healthy life, but the measurement of physical activity is certainly rather empirical resulting in limited individual and custom activity recommendations. Certainly, very accurate three-dimensional models of the cardiovascular system exist, however, requiring the numeric solution of the Navier–Stokes equations of the flow in blood vessels. These models are suitable for the research of cardiac diseases, but computationally very expensive. Direct measurements are expensive and often not applicable outside laboratories. This paper offers a new approach to assess physical activity using thermodynamical systems and its leading quantity of entropy production which is a compromise between computation time and precise prediction of pressure, volume, and flow variables in blood vessels. Based on a simplified (one-dimensional) model of the cardiovascular system of the human body, we develop and evaluate a setup calculating entropy production of the heart to determine the intensity of human physical activity in a more precise way than previous parameters, e.g. frequently used energy considerations. The knowledge resulting from the precise real-time physical activity provides the basis for an intelligent human–technology interaction allowing to steadily adjust the degree of physical activity according to the actual individual performance level and thus to improve training and activity recommendations.