Bio-locomotion in fluids
Designing optimal swimming machines
Swimming creatures delicately float, dance and swarm, yet they can dart to kill or hurl themselves into safe waters, displaying impressive power and, at the same time, incredible elegance. Their seemingly effortless performances are the result of millions of years of evolution which have refined their shapes, motions and behaviours in order to master the complex interplay between their bodies and the surrounding flow.
We combine theory, numerical simulations, and experiments to advance our understanding of the physical mechanisms underlying locomotion in fluids. Furthermore, numerical simulations are coupled to artificial intelligence techniques and embedded in an optimal design cycle, to identify optimal swimming shapes, patterns and cooperative behaviours given a specified objective such as efficiency or speed.
Bibliography
- Aydin, Zhang, Nuethong, Pagan-Diaz, Bashir, Gazzola*, Saif, Neuromuscular actuation of biohybrid motile bots, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2019.
- Bernier, Gazzola, Ronsse, Chatelain, Simulations of propelling and energy harvesting articulated bodies via vortex particle-mesh methods, Journal of Computational Physics, 2019.
- Bernier, Gazzola, Chatelain, Rousse, Numerical simulations and development of drafting strategies for robotic swimmers at low Reynolds number, IEEE International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics (BioRob), 2018.
- Gazzola, Tchieu, Alexeev, de Brauer, Koumoutsakos, Learning to school in the presence of hydrodynamic interactions, Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 2016.
- Gazzola, Argentina M, Mahadevan L, Gait and speed selection in slender inertial swimmers, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2015.
- van Rees, Gazzola, Koumoutsakos, Optimal morphokinematics for undulatory swimmers at intermediate Reynolds numbers, Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 2015.
- Huhn, van Rees, Gazzola, Rossinelli, Haller, Koumoutsakos, Quantitative flow analysis of swimming dynamics with coherent Lagrangian vortices, Chaos, 2015.
- Gazzola, Argentina, Mahadevan, Scaling macroscopic aquatic locomotion, Nature Physics, 2014.
- van Rees, Gazzola, Koumoutsakos, Optimal shapes for anguilliform swimmers at intermediate Reynolds numbers, Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 2013.
- Gazzola, van Rees, Koumoutsakos, C-start: optimal start of larval fish, Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 2012.
Research Projects
Soft CreaturesSoft Creatures
CyborgsProject type
Bio-locomotion in FluidProject type
Viscous StreamingViscous Streaming
Flow NumericsProject type
The Vizzies 2016The Vizzies 2016
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