Title:
Mechanics of Active Networks – Lessons from Fire Ant Aggregations

No Thumbnail Available
Author(s)
Sridhar, Shankar Lalitha
Vernerey, Franck
Fernandez-Nieves, Alberto
Shen, Tong
Authors
Advisor(s)
Advisor(s)
Editor(s)
Associated Organization(s)
Series
Collections
Supplementary to
Abstract
Biological assemblies in nature are seen as active matter due to their ability to perform intelligent collective motion based on neighbor interactions and sometimes without any centralized control or leadership. Fire ants are a great example in this context and display a rich class of material behaviors, including elasticity, viscous flow, and self-healing. Although classical theories in mechanics have enabled us to mechanically characterize this system, there is still a gap in our understanding on how individual ant behavior affects the emerging response of the aggregation. I will discuss an alternative approach from a statistical perspective where the population distribution of ants evolves due to mechanical deformation, and individual ant’s leg detachment and attachment events. Numerical simulations of the aggregation’s response in diverse situations, such as jamming (density) and shear thinning (reduced viscosity) will be presented and compared to experimental measurements.
Sponsor
Georgia Institute of Technology. College of Sciences
Georgia Institute of Technology. Institute for Materials
Georgia Institute of Technology. Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience
Georgia Institute of Technology. School of Materials Science and Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology. School of Physics
American Physical Society
Exxon Mobil Corporation
National Science Foundation (U.S.)
Date Issued
2018-04-19
Extent
11:56 minutes
Resource Type
Moving Image
Resource Subtype
Lecture
Rights Statement
Rights URI