Submitted: September 16, 2013. Accepted in Physics of Fluids: February 10, 2014. This paper presents a computational study of the aerodynamics of an anatomically correct cross-section of Chrysopelia paradisi, the flying snake. These animals inhabit the canopy of rainforests in East Asia, and have a very peculiar method of locomotion: they jump from tree branches, change... Continue »
These animations show the vortex wake behind a snake cross-section (two-dimensional profile), obtained with full Navier-Stokes simulation. The solver is an immersed boundary method that uses GPU hardware, cuIBM (open-source under the MIT license). The cases shown vary in Reynolds number (Re=1000, 2000) and angle... Continue »