Efficiency of an intermittent, flexible propeller

In this talk, I will present a study addressing the problem of propulsion using intermittent dynamics. The system consists of a body moving forward using a propeller that has the possibility of changing shape depending on whether the propeller is rotating or not. The nature of the intermittent dynamics consists in alternating active phases (when the propeller in rotating) and passive phases where the body uses inertia to sustain the motion. The control parameters of the intermittency are the duty cycle (DC) the burst time and the coast time. We show that, for optimal sets of those parameters, the efficiency of the intermittent propeller is improved compared to classical models.