  The interactions and synchronization of two parallel and slender flags in a
uniform axial flow are studied in the present paper by generalizing Lighthill's
Elongated Body Theory (EBT) and Lighthill's Large Amplitude Elongated Body
Theory (LAEBT) to account for the hydrodynamic coupling between flags. The
proposed method consists in two successive steps, namely the reconstruction of
the flow created by a flapping flag within the LAEBT framework and the
computation of the fluid force generated by this nonuniform flow on the second
flag. In the limit of slender flags in close proximity, we show that the effect
of the wakes have little influence on the long time coupled-dynamics and can be
neglected in the modeling. This provides a simplified framework extending LAEBT
to the coupled dynamics of two flags. Using this simplified model, both linear
and large amplitude results are reported to explore the selection of the
flapping regime as well as the dynamical properties of two side-by-side slender
flags. Hydrodynamic coupling of the two flags is observed to destabilize the
flags for most parameters, and to induce a long-term synchronization of the
flags, either in-phase or out-of-phase.
