UC Santa Barbara, College of Engineering
Dressaire Lab
Bio-inspired
Fluids Lab
Learning from Nature,
Engineering solutions to control flow and transport
Welcome to the Bio-inspired fluid flow lab at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Our research aims at developing bio-inspired solutions to control and sense fluid flows at small scales. Organisms living in moving fluids have evolved a variety of strategies to repel water, swim, filter and sense their environment. Understanding the physical principles of why a biological system has selected a given approach to interact with the surrounding fluid provides a new paradigm to design surfaces and engineer processes that can control and sense the flow of complex fluids.
We rely on advanced experimental techniques to probe biological and biomimetic systems. We perform numerical simulations and develop theoretical models to rationalize and generalize the experimental results. Based on this understanding, we create new surfaces, devices, and processes to meet emerging challenges.
We currently focus on three topics: (1) fluid-microstructure interaction, (2) clogging of microchannels, and (3) dispersion of particles. To learn more about our activities, please contact us or, better yet, visit!
This month, the BIFF lab welcomes Sean Bohling who graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder, with a BS in Mechanical Engineering. Welcome to the team Sean!
Our work on transport through gel-coated tubes will soon be travelling to the International Space Station thanks to the NSF-CASIS collaboration!
Micrograph of a skin shed from Sapphire, a local leopard gecko. Leopard geckos get their colouring from special pigment-containing cells called chromatophores in their skin. Chromatophores are found in reptiles, fish, crustaceans and cephalopods, whereas birds and mammals instead have chromatocytes. Contrast and color have been enhanced to show pigmentation.
(Reference: https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/general-science/under-microscope-leopard-gecko-skin)
Courtesy of Brian Dincau