Feb. 19 (Thursday) Steve Childress (Applied Math Lab, NYU)
Title: Inertial swimming as a singular perturbation
Abstract:
We revisit the classic problem of swimming of a sheet studied by G.I. Taylor in Stokes flow. At finite and large Reynold number Taylor's result is modified. The known results are reexamined for large Reynolds number using boundary-layer theory, and the nature of the expansions is clarified for wave-like motions of the sheet. We apply this approach to recoil swimming, a mechanism of locomotion that is known to work in a perfect fluid, thus extending the theory to a slightly viscous fluid.