Effect of Turbulence on the Hydrodynamics of Fish Schools

The collective behavior of fish, observed across various species, offers numerous advantages such as improved foraging, sensing, and interaction. While previous research has primarily focused on steady flow due to the complexities of measurements and high computational costs, the dynamic and often turbulent environment in which fish naturally exist motivates the study of fish schools in turbulent flow. In our previous work, we used a sharp-interface immersed boundary flow solver to simulate the hydrodynamics of a minimal school, demonstrating that enhancement of the leading-edge vortex (LEV) could improve the swimming performance of fish. However, the robustness of the LEV-based mechanisms under turbulent flow conditions remains unclear. In this direct numerical simulations-based study, we imposed a turbulent inflow to the fish school. We then examine the data to gain insights into the effect of turbulence intensity and scale on the swimming performance of fish in schools.