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Cross-stream migration of a deformable bubble is investigated computationally in a pressure-driven channel flow of a viscoelastic fluid via interface-resolved simulations. The flow equations are solved fully coupled with the Giesekus model…
Soft robots - due to their intrinsic flexibility of the body - can adaptively navigate unstructured environments. One of the most popular locomotion gaits that has been implemented in soft robots is undulation. The undulation motion in soft…
We consider an incompressible fluid contained in a toroidal stratum which is only subjected to Newtonian self-attraction. Under the assumption of infinitesimal tickness of the stratum we show the existence of stationary motions during which…
The toe pads of frogs consist of soft hexagonal structures and a viscous liquid contained between and within the hexagonal structures. It has been hypothesized that this configuration creates adhesion by allowing for long range capillary…
In this paper, we propose a novel strategy for a snake robot to move straight up a cylindrical surface. Prior works on pole-climbing for a snake robot mainly utilized a rolling helix gait, and although proven to be efficient, it does not…
In some physical and biological swarms, agents effectively move and interact along curved surfaces. The associated constraints and symmetries can affect collective-motion patterns, but little is known about pattern stability in the presence…
Many edible mushrooms eject their spores (about 10 microns in size) at high speed (about 1 m/s) using surface tension forces in a few microseconds. Basically the coalescence of a droplet with the spore generates the necessary momentum to…
In the absence of inertia, a reciprocal swimmer achieves no net motion in a viscous Newtonian fluid. Here, we investigate the ability of a reciprocally actuated particle to translate through a complex fluid that possesses a network using…
This paper presents aims at mobility improvement of flexible underwater robots. For this purpose, a novel propulsion method using planar structural vibration pattern is proposed, and tested on two kinds of prototypes. The result of…
The elastic deformation of a soft solid induced by capillary forces crucially relies on the excess stress inside the solid-liquid interface. While for a liquid-liquid interface this "surface stress" is strictly identical to the "surface…
How fish modulate their fin stiffness during locomotive manoeuvres remains unknown. We show that changing the fin's curvature modulates its stiffness. Modelling the fin as bendable bony rays held together by a membrane, we deduce that fin…
The motion of submerged magnetic microspheres rolling at a glass-water interface has been studied using magnetic rotation and optical tweezers combined with bright-field microscopy particle tracking techniques. Individual microspheres of…
When wet soil becomes fully saturated by intense rainfall, or is shaken by an earthquake, it may fluidize catastrophically. Sand-rich slurries are treated as granular suspensions, where the failure is related to an unjamming transition. Mud…
Swimming and flying animals demonstrate remarkable adaptations to diverse flow conditions in their environments. In this study, we aim to advance the fundamental understanding of the interaction between flexible bodies and heterogeneous…
When a liquid droplet is located above a super-hydrophobic surface, it only barely touches the solid portion of the surface, and therefore slides very easily on it. More generally, super-hydrophobic surfaces have been shown to lead to…
Mudskippers are unique amphibious fish capable of locomotion in diverse environments, including terrestrial surfaces, aquatic habitats, and highly viscous substrates such as mud. This versatile locomotion is largely enabled by their…
We use the image solution technique to compute the leading order frequency-dependent self-mobility function of a small solid particle moving perpendicular to the surface of a spherical capsule whose membrane possesses shearing and bending…
The locomotion and design of microswimmers are topical issues of current fundamental and applied research. In addition to numerous living and artificial active microswimmers, a passive microswimmer was identified only recently: a soft,…
The interfacial behaviour of water remains a central question to fields as diverse as protein folding, friction and ice formation[1,2]. While the structural and dynamical properties of water at interfaces differ strongly from those in the…
Motivated by the dynamics of microbubbles near catalytic surfaces in bubble-powered microrockets, we consider theoretically the growth of a free spherical bubble near a flat no-slip surface in a Stokes flow. The flow at the bubble surface…