Fluid-structure Interactions From the Large to the Very Small

Due to technical issues, the recording of the lecture ends approximately ten minutes early. The speaker’s slides can be downloaded here for your convenience.

The interaction of a flowing fluid with immersed bodies — which may be compliant or active — defines a class of moving boundary problems that are central to engineering and biology. What makes such problems especially difficult (and fascinating) is that the dynamics of body and fluid are intertwined and must be treated in an integrated way. I will discuss problems in fluid-structure interaction ranging from the macroscopic, i.e. flapping of flags and bending of tree leaves, to the micro – collective behaviors of micro-organisms and the transport of subcellular structures. These examples will make clear the fundamental role that size plays in modeling and understanding the dynamics.

Michael Shelley is an applied mathematician who works on the modeling and simulation of complex systems arising in physics and biology. He holds a BA in Mathematics from the University of Colorado (1981) and a PhD in Applied Mathematics from the University of Arizona (1985). He was a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University, and then joined the mathematics faculty at the University of Chicago (1988). In 1992 he joined the Courant Institute at NYU where he is the George and Lilian Lyttle Professor of Applied Mathematics. Among other honors, he has received the Frenkiel Award from the American Physical Society, the Cole Lectureship from the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and is a Fellow of both societies. He is co-founder and co-Director of the Courant
Institute’s Applied Mathematics Laboratory.

Reading material here and here.
Lecture Slides here.