Frontiers in Applied Math Colloquium I David Hu, Ant rafts and maggot flows

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.