Related papers: Rotational dynamics of a soft filament: wrapping t…

Motivated by bacterial transport through porous media, here we study the swimming of an actuated, flexible helical filament in both three-dimensional free space and within a cylindrical tube whose diameter is much smaller than the length of…

In a wide range of applications, microfluidic channels are implemented in soft substrates. In such configurations, where fluidic inertia and compressibility are negligible, the propagation of fluids in channels is governed by a balance…

Our fluid dynamics video shows the response of a layer of viscoelastic fluid to an array of four-roll mills steadily rotating underneath. When the relaxation time of the fluid is sufficiently long, the fluid divides into "cells" with a…

The propulsion of many eukaryotic cells is generated by flagella, flexible slender filaments that are actively oscillating in space and time. The dynamics of these biological appendages have inspired the design of many types of artificial…

We study how the three-dimensional shape of rigid filaments determines the microscopic dynamics and macroscopic rheology of entangled semi-dilute Brownian suspensions. To control the filament shape we use bacterial flagella, which are…

We study the dynamics of the solid to liquid transition for a model material made of elastic particles immersed in a viscous fluid. The interaction between particle surfaces includes their viscous lubrication, a sharp repulsion when they…

We investigate the dynamics of a single semiflexible filament, under the action of a compressing force, using numerical simulations and scaling arguments. The force is applied along the end to end vector at one extremity of the filament,…

We present a general theoretical analysis of semiflexible filaments subject to viscous drag or point forcing. These are the relevant forces in dynamic experiments designed to measure biopolymer bending moduli. By analogy with the ``Stokes…

The drag anisotropy of slender filaments is a critical physical property allowing swimming in low-Reynolds number flows, and without it linear translation is impossible. Here we show that, in contrast, net rotation can occur under isotropic…

Crumpled paper or drapery patterns are everyday examples of how elastic sheets can respond to external forcing. In this Letter, we study experimentally a novel sort of forcing. We consider a circular flexible plate clamped at its center and…

Active filaments, such as microtubules with attached cargo-carrying motor proteins, are important dynamic structures for fluid transport in and around living cells. The mathematical models of active filaments appearing in the literature…

Motivated to understand the behavior of biological filaments interacting with membranes of various types, we study a theoretical model for the shape and thermodynamics of intrinsically-helical filaments bound to curved membranes. We show…

Soft lubricated contacts exhibit complex interfacial behaviours governed by the coupled effects of multiscale surface roughness and non-linear fluid-solid interactions. Accurately capturing this interplay across thin-film flows is…

Using analytical calculations, we characterize the rotational behavior of a rigid spherical particle when subject to a net external torque in a continuous viscoelastic environment. On long time scales, the embedding medium can either…

We use a series of molecular dynamics simulations, and analytical theory, to demonstrate that a system of hard spheres confined to a narrow cylindrical channel exhibits a continuous phase transition from an isotropic fluid at low densities,…

The effect of rigid surfaces on the dynamics of thin liquid films which are amenable to the lubrication approximation is considered. It is shown that the Helfrich energy of the layer gives rise to additional terms in the time-evolution…

Kinetic helicity is one of the invariants of the Euler equations that is associated with the topology of vortex lines within the fluid. In superfluids, the vorticity is concentrated along vortex filaments. In this setting, helicity would be…

The macroscopic properties of polymeric fluids are inherited from the material properties of the fibers embedded in the solvent. The behavior of such passive fibers in flow has been of interest in a wide range of systems, including cellular…

Flexible canopy flows are often encountered in natural scenarios, e.g., when crops sway in the wind or when submerged kelp forests are agitated by marine currents. Here, we provide a detailed characterisation of the turbulent flow developed…

Initially straight slender elastic rods with geometrically constrained ends buckle and form stable two-dimensional shapes when compressed by bringing the ends together. It is also known that beyond a critical value of the pre-stress,…