The above figure was produced by a new numerical method for the solution of immersed boundary problems. The left frame shows the initial configuration of a thin elastic membrane with stiffness immersed in an incompressible fluid. On the right is a snapshot at a later time. The stiffness in the membrane causes it to move which creates fluid motion which in turn further affects the position of the membrane. The figure below also shows level lines of the vorticity which is produced by the motion of the membrane and then diffuses into and is transported by the flow. Since the membrane is also moving with the fluid velocity, the vorticity stays near the membrane.
Immersed boundaries models are currently being applied to a variety of applications including biological applications such as the modeling of blood flow in the heart, the swimming of flagellated organism, and platelet aggregation.
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