Jane Wang: Computational Modeling of Insect Flight
2005 Harvey Mudd College Mathematics Conference on Scientific Computing
Jane Wang (Cornell University)
Most living species, include protozoa, bacteria, insects, birds, and fish, locomote via the interactions between fluids and moving surfaces. Whether using cilia, flagella, wings, or fins, the locomotion is governed by the Navier-Stokes equation coupled to moving boundaries. The computational methods I will describe are two examples of solving this class of problems. The first method is designed to solve a single flapping wing using a conformal mesh to resolve the wing tip, and the second method is an immersed interface method to simulate multiple wing interactions. I will discuss some of our recent results on the efficiency of flapping flight, the trajectories of a piece of falling paper, and the fore-hind wing interactions in dragonfly flight.