UBC Math Department Colloquium: Boyce Griffith

Fluid-structure interaction (FSI) is ubiquitous in nature and occurs at molecular to environmental scales, from the writhing of DNA in nucleoplasm, to the beating of cilia and flagella and the projection of lamellipodia and bleb-like protrusions by motile cells, to the flow of blood in the heart, to swimming fish and flying birds and insects, to the dispersal of seeds and pollen in the wind. This talk will describe numerical methods and computational infrastructure for FSI, focusing on extensions of the immersed boundary (IB) method for fluid-structure interaction and applications of these methods in medicine and biology. I will discuss IB methods for FSI with prescribed structural kinematics and methods for FSI involving flexible bodies that use nonlinear structural dynamics formulations, including progress towards new methods that achieve higher-order accuracy. I will also survey applications of these IB methods in biology and medicine, including flagellar mechanics, aquatic locomotion and neuro-mechanical feedback, and esophageal transport. Finally, I will detail ongoing work to develop IB models of the heart and its valves as a platform for simulating cardiovascular medical devices. This talk is intended to be accessible to a broad audience, including undergraduate students.