Coupling Internal and External Mechanics of Swimming Organisms: A Computational Approach

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Fauci9805492 This project concerns the fluid dynamics of aquatic animallocomotion, a field that encompasses the study of flagellarmotility as well as invertebrate swimming. The investigator andher colleages explore the coupling of the internalforce-generating mechanisms of the organisms with an externalviscous, incompressible fluid. A unified computational approachcan be adapted to model the internal axoneme mechanics of abeating cilium, the force-generating internal flagella ofspirochetes, as well as the coupling of active and passive tissueproperties to the swimming mechanics of a leech. In addition tomodeling the dynamics of a single organism, the collectivehydrodynamic interactions of groups of organisms and theirenvironment can be examined. The investigator has developed amathematical model designed to study the coupled mechanicalsystem comprised of the fluid and the immersed organism. Thenumerical method used is the immersed boundary method. The fullincompressible Navier-Stokes equations are solved in a domain offluid within which neutrally-buoyant organisms undergoingtime-dependent movements are immersed. The salient feature ofthis method is that the suspended organism is replaced bysuitable contributions to a force density term in the fluiddynamics equations. This interdisciplinary project employs modern methods inscientific computing to study important biological processes. Theunderstanding of bacterial motility and aggregation is of vitalimportance in bioremediation, the process by which bacteria areused to degrade toxic chemicals. In addition, the study of theinternal mechanisms of cilia, flagella and spirochetes hasapplications in medicine and biotechnology. The computationalalgorithms developed in this project will be useful in studyingother biofluiddynamic problems as well as contributing toexpertise in high performance computing.