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A flagellated bacterium navigates fluid environments by rotating its helical flagellar bundle. The wobbling of the bacterial body significantly influences its swimming behavior. To quantify the three underlying motions--precession,…
We study propulsion arising from microscopic colloidal rotors dynamically assembled and driven in a viscous fluid upon application of an elliptically polarized rotating magnetic field. Close to a confining plate, the motion of this…
Hovering insects are limited by their physiology and need to rotate their wings at the end of each back and forth motion to keep the wing's leading edge ahead of its trailing edge. The wing rotation at the end of each half-stroke pushes the…
The theories of aero- and hydrodynamics predict animal movement and device design in air and water through the computation of lift, drag, and thrust forces. Although models of terrestrial legged locomotion have focused on interactions with…
Spinning ice discs in nature have been reported for more than a century, yet laboratory experiments have yielded diverse observations and contradictory explanations, leaving the mechanism behind the disc motion elusive. Here we combine…
The friction of a stationary moving skate on smooth ice is investigated, in particular in relation to the formation of a thin layer of water between skate and ice. It is found that the combination of ploughing and sliding gives a friction…
We develop the hydrodynamic theory of dry, polar ordered, active matter (``flocking") with autochemotaxis; i.e., self-propelled entities moving in the same direction, each emitting a substance which attracts the others (e.g., ants). We find…
In this letter we propose a kinematic model to show how collisions with a surface and rotational Brownian motion give rise to the accumulation of micro-swimmers near a surface. In this model, an elongated microswimmer invariably travels…
We present an experimental study of the statistical properties of millimeter-size spheres floating on the surface of a turbulent flow. The flow is generated in a layer of liquid metal by an electromagnetic forcing. By using two magnet…
Snake robots are characterized by their ability to navigate through small spaces and loose terrain by utilizing efficient cyclic forms of locomotion. Soft snake robots are a subset of these robots which utilize soft, compliant actuators to…
Liquid marbles, droplets coated with a granular layer, are highly mobile as particles prevent capillary adhesion with the substrate. Yet, they exhibit static friction due to their granular shell, which resists rolling until it yields. This…
Aeolian sand transport is a major process shaping landscapes on Earth and on diverse celestial bodies. Conditions favoring bimodal sand transport, with fine-grain saltation driving coarse-grain reptation, give rise to the evolution of…
The slip of a fluid layer in contact with a solid confining surface is investigated for different temperatures and densities using molecular dynamic simulations. We show that for an anomalous water-like fluid the slip goes as follows: for…
Lubrication forces depend to a high degree on elasticity, texture, charge, chemistry, and temperature of the interacting surfaces. Therefore, by appropriately designing surface properties, we may tailor lubrication forces to reduce…
In this paper we present a hydrodynamic approach to describe the motion of migrating bacteria as a special class of self-propelled systems. Analytical and numerical calculations has been performed to study the behavior of our model in the…
Buckling induced by viscous flow changes the shape of sheet-like nanomaterial particles suspended in liquids. This instability at the particle scale affects collective behavior of suspension flows and has many technological and biological…
Confinement and wall effects are known to affect the kinematics and propulsive characteristics of swimming microorganisms. When a solid body is dragged through a viscous fluid at constant velocity, the presence of a wall increases fluid…
We study channelization and slope destabilization driven by subsurface (groundwater) flow in a laboratory experiment. The pressure of the water entering the sandpile from below as well as the slope of the sandpile are varied. We present…
We use a three-bead-spring model to investigate the dynamics of bi-flagellate micro-swimmers near a surface. While the primary dynamics and scattering are governed by geometric-dependent direct contact, the fluid flows generated by the…
Swimming microbes, such as bacteria and algae, live in diverse habitats including soil, ocean and human body which are characterized by structural boundaries and heterogeneous fluid flows. Although much progress has been made in…