Penguin Torpedo

The penguins are able to move underwater like little rockets, reaching speeds from 0 to 7 m/s within a second. For those trying to understand what this means - this is incredible acceleration, certainly when it comes to underwater operations.

By: Ziv Kohani
The phrase "penguin walk" is perceived by us as a description of a funny and swinging walk. So maybe this is how they walk on land, but under water the penguins are very surprising in their movement...

Flavio Noche, a lecturer in aerodynamics at the leading technological institutes in Switzerland, studies the movement of penguins in order to develop more efficient and more sophisticated underwater propulsion technologies.

Among other things, Noche discovered that the penguins are able to move underwater like small rockets, reaching speeds from 0 to 7 meters per second within a second. For those trying to understand what this means - this is incredible acceleration, certainly when it comes to underwater operations.

At a conference of the fields of dynamics of flows that is taking place these days, Nocha presents a model that he developed and creates in the laboratory. The model actually features an innovative spherical mechanical mechanism, imitating the combined movement of the penguin's shoulder and wing. The mechanism can be attached to the end of a rotating axis, and can allow a movement with 3 degrees of freedom (rotational movements have only 2 degrees of freedom), which allows for an increase in the range of rotational movement, and in fact presents an improved propeller assembly.

Of course, in order to achieve what the penguin does with its eyes closed, the researchers invested a lot of thought and performed many experiments - the mechanism that played this movement of the penguin has to withstand very large mechanical loads.

This is another example of how a humpbacked creature, which sways as it walks on the surface of the earth, leaves behind a trail of smoke, and in this case bubbles, when it is under water...