EXPERIMENTS AND SIMULATIONS OF MAXIMAL SCULLING PROPULSION: VORTICITY IMPULSE IN HUMAN BIOMECHANICS

The detailed study of the turbulence and the fluid flow in sport is an open and exciting field of research, in particular in swimming and aquatic sports there is a wealth of new techniques that may aid performance. In swimming, thanks to measurement techniques like Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV), Particle Tracking (PT) or pattern analysis, now it is possible to measure the flow environment and not just the human movement. Numerical Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is also a useful tool. We present several techniques stressing the importance of 3D effects and the dynamics of enhanced propulsion by hands and feet while the reduction in resistance need to be considered in an integrated way. Examples of Sculling, Hand wakes, Underwater Undulatory Swimming (UUS) and Vortex Filament Analysis (VFA) are all interesting to improve swimming techniques.Peer Reviewe