### Session T41: Swimming, Motility and Locomotion

2:30 PM–5:42 PM, Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Room: 156B

Chair: Paolo Arratia, University of Pennsylvania

Abstract ID: BAPS.2012.MAR.T41.1

### Abstract: T41.00001 : Undulatory swimming on a free surface

2:30 PM–2:42 PM

MathJax On | Off   Abstract

#### Authors:

Ramiro Godoy-Diana
(PMMH UMR7636 CNRS; ESPCI ParisTech; UPMC; U. Diderot Paris 7)

Sophie Ramananarivo
(PMMH UMR7636 CNRS; ESPCI ParisTech; UPMC; U. Diderot Paris 7)

Olivia Gann
(PMMH UMR7636 CNRS; ESPCI ParisTech; UPMC; U. Diderot Paris 7)

Benjamin Thiria
(PMMH UMR7636 CNRS; ESPCI ParisTech; UPMC; U. Diderot Paris 7)

A wide variety of swimmers in nature use body undulations to generate a propulsive force, in part owing to the relative insensitivity of the principle of undulatory swimming to the value of the Reynolds number $Re=UL/\nu$, which measures the relative importance of viscous and inertial forces in the flow considered ($U$ and $L$ being the typical speed and length of the animal, and $\nu$ the kinematic viscosity of the surrounding fluid). Here we study a flexible filament forced to oscillate by imposing a harmonic motion to one of its extremities (using magnetic interactions) and propelling itself at the surface of a water tank. This experiment serves as a canonical model for studying the interactions between an elastic structure undergoing complex deformations and the surrounding fluid.

To cite this abstract, use the following reference: http://meetings.aps.org/link/BAPS.2012.MAR.T41.1