Modeling the waves and interactions of capillary surfers

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• Anand Oza, New Jersey Institute of Technology
• Wednesday 20 November 2024, 14:00-15:00
• JDB Seminar RM.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Anna Walczyk.

We present a combined experimental and theoretical investigation into “capillary surfers,” which are millimetric objects that self-propel while floating at the interface of a vibrating fluid bath. Recent experiments showed that surfer pairs may lock into one of seven bound states, and that larger collectives of surfers self-organize into coherent flocking states. Our theoretical model for the surfers’ positional and orientational dynamics approximates a surfer as a pair of vertically oscillating point sources of weakly viscous gravity-capillary waves. We derive an analytical solution for the associated interfacial deformation and thus the hydrodynamic force exerted by one surfer on another. Our model recovers the bound states found in experiments and exhibits good quantitative agreement with experimental data. Generally, our work shows that self-propelling objects coupled by interfacial flows constitute a promising platform for studying active matter systems in which both inertial and viscous effects are relevant.

This talk is part of the Engineering Fluids Group Seminar series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• Acoustics Lab Seminars
• Engineering Department Acoustics/Combustion Student seminars
• Engineering Fluids Group Seminar
• JDB Seminar RM

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