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Applied Mathematics Colloquium
Friday, February 8, 11:30 am
Cullimore Lecture Hall II
New Jersey Institute of Technology
Regularization Methods for Fluid Flow Simulations
Ricardo Cortez
Department of Mathematics
Tulane University
New Orleans, LA
Abstract
The fluid motion surrounding swimming microorganisms is often modeled using
the Stokes equations of fluid flow due to the small length scales. I will
present
the Method of Regularized Stokeslets and other related ideas that are used
to
compute Stokes flows interacting with immersed flexible bodies or moving
through
obstacles. The method treats the flexible bodies as sources of force in the
equations and the resulting velocity is the superposition of flows due to
each of the
force elements. Exact flows are derived for forces that are smooth but
supported in
small spheres, rather than point forces. I will present the idea of the
method, some
of the known theory and several examples from biological applications.