MC
5501
and
Zoom
(https://uwaterloo.zoom.us/j/92597569594?pwd=WjVjRmUvWXZaM0VLeGxtY2NlRVRBUT09)
Speaker
David Hu | Georgia Tech Mechanical Engineering and Biology
Title
Ant rafts and maggot flows
Abstract
We present experiments with two insects that behave as active materials, fire ants and black soldier fly larvae. Fire ants link their bodies together to form waterproofs rafts that can flow or solidify in response to the fluid forces around them. Black soldier fly larvae can eat an entire pizza in two hours. We rationalize their high feeding rates by visualizing the vortices their swarms create. We use fluidized beds to show that their motion erases any structural memory of their aggregations, which cause them to flow differently than typical inactive granular materials like sand.