EUROMECH Colloquium 521
The study of biological flows enjoys a rapidly increasing interest. Research on biomedical flow systems and animal locomotion has reached a high level of maturity and has become a well established topic within the larger field of fluid mechanics. While there are many research groups studying flow problems at moderate to large Reynolds numbers (e.g. cardiovascular fluid mechanics), academic research on biomedical flows at low Reynolds numbers is less commonly found.
This fact is unfortunate since low-Reynolds-number flows are highly relevant to medicine and biology in general, and to physiology in particular. In collaboration with medical scientists and biologists, the fluid dynamics community is able to make substantial contributions to these fields. Typical low-Reynolds-number biomedical and biological flow systems may include
- flow in the lower airways
- cerebrospinal fluid flow
- microcirculation and red blood cell transport
- lymphatic flow
- flows in the eye and the inner ear (balance sense, hearing)
- biomedical microdevices (e.g. filters, pumps, drainages, microrobots)
- propulsion and collective behaviour of microorganisms.
The Colloquium brought together researchers from groups throughout Europe working on low-Reynolds-number biomedical and biological flows. Theoretical, computational as well as experimental contributions were considered. The book of abstract has a is available online at the ETH e-collection.