Squid Jet Propulsion Can Enhance Design of Underwater Robots, Vehicles

Squids use a form of jet propulsion that is not well understood, especially when it comes to their hydrodynamics under turbulent flow conditions. Discovering their secrets can help create new designs for bioinspired underwater robots, so researchers are exploring the fundamental mechanism. They describe their numerical study in Physics of Fluids; among their discoveries, they found that thrust production and efficiency are underestimated within laminar, or nonturbulent, flows.