Fluid Dynamic performance of Euplectella aspergillum: drawing inspiration from deep-sea glass sponges for engineering design

ORAL

Abstract

We analyze in detail the fluid dynamic performance of the deep-sea glass sponge Euplectella aspergillum through very large-scale simulations carried out on the Italian HPC facility of CINECA, “Marconi100”.

We employ the Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM) to describe the fluid dynamic field at various Reynolds number, from Re = 100 to Re = 2000, with a space resolution of 0.2 mm, considering the complete geometry of  E. aspergillum  and four simplified models, derived from the morphology of the deep-sea sponge.

We detail the formation of coherent fluid-dynamic structures downstream the geometries and within the body-cavity, and the role of the sponge skeletal motifs on the formation of such patterns. 

The results will have broad repercussions for engineering applications, from the design of aero-naval structures with reduced drag to the realization of novel chemical reactors and slender skyscrapers.

*G.F. acknowledges CINECA computational grant ISCRA-B IsB17– SPONGES, no. HP10B9ZOKQ and, partially, the support of PRIN projects CUP E82F16003010006 (principal investigator, G.F. for the Tor Vergata Research Unit) and CUP E84I19001020006 (principal investigator, G. Bella). G.P. acknowledges the support of the Forrest Research Foundation, under a postdoctoral research fellowship. M.P. acknowledges the support of the National Science Foundation under grant no. CMMI 1901697. S.S. acknowledges financial support from the European Research Council under the Horizon 2020 Programme advanced grant agreement no. 739964 ('COPMAT').

–

Publication: Falcucci, G., Amati, G., Fanelli, P. et al. Extreme flow simulations reveal skeletal adaptations of deep-sea sponges. Nature 595, 537–541 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03658-1

Presenters

  • Giacomo Falcucci

    • Department of Enterprise Engineering "Mario Lucertini" - University of Rome "Tor Vergata"

Authors

  • Giacomo Falcucci

    • Department of Enterprise Engineering "Mario Lucertini" - University of Rome "Tor Vergata"

  • Giorgio Amati

    • High Performance Computing Department, CINECA Rome Section, Rome, Italy

  • Giovanni Polverino

    • Centre for Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia, Australia

  • Pierluigi Fanelli

    • DEIM, School of Engineering, University of Tuscia, Viterbo, Italy

  • Vesselin K Krastev

    • Department of Enterprise Engineering "Mario Lucertini", University of Rome "Tor Vergata", Rome, Italy

  • Maurizio Porfiri

    • Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Tandon School of Engineering, New York University, New York, NY, USA.

  • Sauro Succi

    • Italian Institute of Technology, Center for Life Nano- and Neuro-Science, Rome, Italy