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Applied Mathematics Colloquium

Friday, November 11,  2005, 11:30 am
Cullimore Lecture Hall II
New Jersey Institute of Technology

Extreme Elastohydrodynamics: of Flags, Fishes and Plants

L. Mahadevan

Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences

Harvard University

Cambridge, MA

Abstract

The borderlands between elasticity and hydrodynamics lead naturally to a number of moving boundary problems in elastohydrodynamics. I will discuss some phenomena in this rich area involving extreme geometries: the flutter of a slender flag in a breeze (and its relation to fish swimming), the lift on a soft fluid-lubricated solid sliding/rolling near a wall (and its relation to joint lubrication), and the dynamics of fluid-filled tissues (and its relation to rapid movements in some plants).