Many organisms such as benthic bivalves (e.g. clams, oysters) feed by drawing fluid into an inhalant siphon, filtering suspended particles/nutrients/oxygen, and exhaling the filtrate as a jet. These biological flows are of course part of a larger class of flows we refer to as inhalant flows whose hydrodynamics are relevant to everything from vertical mixing in benthic aquatic ecosystems, to pipetting, to respiration in terrestrial vertebrates, to fluid and entrained particle samplers for environmental sensors. In this project, we used combined experimental (physical modeling, particle image velocimetry) and numerical (finite element computational fluid dynamics CFD) tools to characterize the hydrodynamics of viscous inhalant flows.
Particle flow visualization of an impulsively started inhalant flow
I. Viscous inhalant flow hydrodynamics: A CFD study of the exterior flow
II. Viscous inhalant flow hydrodynamics: A high dynamic range PIV study of the exterior & interior flows
