ABSTRACT

Active/reactive fluids convert and transduce energy from their surrounding into a motion and other mechanical activities. These systems are usually out of mechanical or even thermodynamic equilibrium. One can find such examples in almost all biological systems. In this talk I will develop a general framework for active fluids which convert chemical energy into various types of mechanical energy. The theory will be consistent with laws of thermodynamics. This is the extension of the classical energetic variational approaches for mechanical systems and nonequilibrium thermodynamics. In this talk I will discuss various mathematical challenges as well as several specific biological applications, such as muscle contraction dynamics.