Seminar über aktuelle Fragen zur Dynamik komplexer Fluide: The Physics of Fast, Elastic Energy Release in Biological and Synthetic Systems

Seminar über aktuelle Fragen zur Dynamik komplexer Fluide

  • Datum: 23.03.2018
  • Uhrzeit: 10:15 - 11:15
  • Vortragende(r): Dr. Mark Ilton
  • University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA
  • Ort: Max-Planck-Institut für Dynamik und Selbstorganisation (MPIDS)
  • Raum: SR 0.77
  • Gastgeber: MPIDS/DCF
  • Kontakt: oliver.baeumchen@ds.mpg.de
Inspired by small organisms which store and rapidly release elastic energy, recent examples in micro-robotics have used elastically-driven motion as a design strategy. Remarkably, the organisms achieve capabilities that exceed current engineering performance: generating high accelerations that can be continuously fueled through metabolic processes, and are used repeatedly with minimal performance degradation. To address this gap in performance, I will describe a mathematical and conceptual framework that our team has developed to analyze the fast, elastic energy release in these systems. The model incorporates the dynamic coupling of motors, springs, and latches, each of which displays its own force-velocity behavior. This mathematical approach reveals a rich and tunable performance landscape for spring-actuated movement.

Building upon this framework, I will describe our experimental approach which seeks to understand the size-scaling limits of elastic performance. Using a synthetic material with elastic properties similar to resilin (a biological material used for elastic energy storage), we measure the motion of the material during elastic energy release with a high-speed camera. The results highlight that velocity, not acceleration nor time duration, should be used to compare elastic systems which vastly differ in size. By comparing our synthetic resilin-like material to examples in biology, we find several organisms which demonstrate astonishing elastic performance. Lessons from these organisms serve as a guide for future micro-robotic design.
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