Flying Mobula Ray Phenomena
A CASE STUDY IN COMPLEX MULTIPHASE PHYSICS
Figure 1. Flying ray.
There exists much debate regarding the true motivation of Mobula ray's desire to fly through the air. Fascinated onlookers witness the propelling of the ray from the sea into the low-viscosity air above. Might this behavior be motivated by mating? Possibly, might the root cause ethology be motivated by the simple desire to remove parasites? Finally, could the behavior be simply due to the Mobula's love of flying (see Figure 1)? At COMERI, we can only imagine, however, we are extremely interested in studying this complex and fascinating behavior from the unique first-principal computational physics perspective.
Through detailed multi-physics simulations, which will include multiphase fluid flow modeling, detailed flow and FSI, a more advanced understanding of this time-honored tradition can be harnessed.
COMERI’s research plan is to:
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Construct a computational model including all appropriate modes of multiphase fluid interaction and use this to delve into the complex phenomena of flying Mobula Rays.