Above: least squares finite element computation of an inertial
membrane swimming on the surface of a Newtonian fluid (Re=100) by
propagating waves along its body. Randomly distributed particles are
shown advecting with the flow on a contour plot of the vorticity.
Although this swimmer is not very efficient, it does consistently move
to the right at a rate of approximately 10% of its length per cycle.
Below: the nodes of the grid move vertically to remain fitted to the
domain. Piecewise quadratic C0 elements are used for each of the six
variables in the computation (2 velocity components, 2 shear
components, vorticity, and pressure). Triangles on the upper wall
have curved boundaries. A multigrid preconditioned conjugate gradient
method is used to solve the equations at each timestep (or at each
iteration of a steady-state calculation).