Title: Probing Non-Equilibrium Fluids: Self-Assembly, Collective Dynamics, and Autonomous Machine

Speaker: Tony Gao, Department of Computational Mathematics, Science and Engineering MSU

Abstract:New physics and phenomena concerning how biological structures interact with fluid flows have generated considerable excitement over recent decades in disciplines as diverse as applied mathematics, biophysics, material sciences, and engineering. While advances in micro/nanotechnologies have enabled us to build simple biomatter or fabricate functional soft materials to mimic nature, it is largely unknown how to exploit their intriguing, and sometimes anomalous, physical properties for precise engineering manipulations. Nevertheless, uncovering the physical mechanisms of biological and synthetic non-equilibrium systems often requires the development of new theoretical models and ad-hoc simulation methods that can resolve the reciprocal interactions between fluids and moving structures. In this talk, I will focus on my recent research work in the emerging areas of active matter and soft robotics. First of all, I will discuss a study of microtubule/motor protein assembly using multiscale modeling and simulation, and illustrate how the local particle-particle interactions lead to self-organization, and then manifest themselves as large-scale fluid motions through a concatenation of hydrodynamic instabilities. Moreover, I will show that manipulation of such active fluids to do useful mechanical work can be achieved by imposing appropriate rigid or soft boundary confinement. Next, I will introduce a fictitious domain/active strain computation framework. It will be used in simulation and design of autonomous bio-inspired soft robotic swimmers that propel themselves by performing large and reversible deformation. In addition, I will briefly discuss the ongoing projects with targeted applications in soft matter physics, robotics design and control, and biomedical research.

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