Semester Archive: Environmental Fluid Mechanics/Hydrology

What is happening inside a biofilm? Some Fluid Mechanical Adaptations

Thu, 05/10/2012 | 04:00 pm | Room 48-316

Bacterial biofilms are interface-associated colonies of bacteria embedded in an extracellular matrix that is composed primarily of polymers and proteins.

Michael Brenner, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences Kavli Insitute for Bionano Science and Technology, Harvard University

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On the form of fish and trees

Thu, 05/03/2012 | 04:00 pm | Room 48-316

During this talk, I will consider two distinct problems of fluid-structure interactions applied to biological systems.

Christophe Eloy, UC San Diego & Aix-Marseille University, France

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Flapping flight from flexing foils

Thu, 04/26/2012 | 04:00 pm | Room 48-316

Many large insects power their flight with flexible wings that undergo remarkable deformations. The structural dynamics of wings and their interactions with fluid forces forms a fluid-solid coupling problem that is a focus of past and current...

Tom Daniel, Biology Department, University of Washington

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Guidance and control of fish shoals using biomimetic robots

Thu, 04/12/2012 | 04:00 pm | Room 48-316

Engineering designs of robots and control systems are often inspired by nature. Recently developed biomimetic robots are barely distinguishable from their animal counterparts. Many cooperative control algorithms for multivehicle teams and mobile...

Maurizio Porfiri, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Polytechnic Institute of New York University

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River basin metabolism: co-organization of vegetation and runoff dynamics

Thu, 04/05/2012 | 04:00 pm | Room 48-316

The metabolism of a river basin is defined as the set of processes through which the basin maintains its structure and respond to its environment. A principle of of equal metabolic rate per unit area throughout the basin structure is developed...

Ignacio Rodriguez-Iturbe, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Princeton University

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Towards a transport equation that acknowledges mixing and spreading rates

Thu, 03/22/2012 | 04:00 pm | Room 48-316

Solute transport has been traditionally simulated with the advection-dispersion equation (ADE), even though this equation fails to reproduce many field observations (scale dependence of dispersion, time dependence of kinematic porosity, tailing,...

Jesus Carrera, Spanish National Research Council (IDAEA-CSIC), Barcelona, Spain

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