Related papers: A basic swimmer at low Reynolds number

Translational and rotational swimming at small Reynolds number of a planar assembly of identical spheres immersed in an incompressible viscous fluid is studied on the basis of a set of equations of motion for the individual spheres. The…

Fluid-based locomotion at low Reynolds number is subject to the constraints of the scallop theorem, which dictate that body kinematics identical under a time-reversal symmetry (in particular, those with a single degree of freedom) cannot…

By synergistically combining modeling, simulation and experiments, we show that there exists a regime of self-propulsion in which the inertia in the fluid dynamics can be separated from that of the swimmer. This is demonstrated by the…

The need to develop models to predict the motion of microrobots, or robots of a much smaller scale, moving in fluids in a low Reynolds number regime, and in particular, in non Newtonian fluids, cannot be understated. The article develops a…

We study the snapping instability of a spherical elastic shell induced by a viscous flow, the umbrella flipping problem when life is at low Reynolds numbers. We combine precision desktop-scale experiments, fluid-structure simulations, shell…

In this paper we investigate different strategies to overcome the scallop theorem. We will show how to obtain a net motion exploiting the fluid's type change during a periodic deformation. We are interested in two different models: in the…

The simple model of a low Reynolds number swimmer made from three spheres that are connected by two arms is considered in its general form and analyzed. The swimming velocity, force--velocity response, power consumption, and efficiency of…

The net steady state flow pattern of a distorting sphere is studied in the framework of the bilinear theory of swimming at low Reynolds number. It is argued that the starting point of a theory of interacting active particles should be based…

Understanding swimming in soft yielding media is challenging due to their complex deformation response to the swimmer's motion. We experimentally show that a scallop-inspired swimmer with reciprocally flapping wings generates locomotion in…

Understanding the stochastic dynamics of tracer particles in active fluids is important for identifying the physical properties of flow generating objects such as colloids, bacteria or algae. Here, we study both analytically and numerically…

We reconsider fluid dynamics for a self-propulsive swimmer in Stokes flow. With an exact definition of deformation of a swimmer, a proof is given to Purcell's scallop theorem including the body rotation. The breakdown of the theorem due to…

Simple, linear equations relate microscopic swimmers to the corresponding gliders and pumps. They have the following set of consequences: The swimming velocity of free swimmers can be inferred from the force on the tethered swimmer and vice…

The simulation of turbulent flow requires many degrees of freedom to resolve all the relevant times and length scales. However, due to the dissipative nature of the Navier-Stokes equations, the long-term dynamics are expected to lie on a…

Inspired by recent experiments using synthetic microswimmers to manipulate droplets, we investigate the low-Reynolds-number locomotion of a model swimmer (a spherical squirmer) encapsulated inside a droplet of comparable size in another…

Pumping at low Reynolds number is a ubiquitously encountered feature, both in biological organisms and engineered devices. Generating net flow requires the presence of an asymmetry in the system, which traditionally comes from geometric…

The swimming of an assembly of rigid spheres immersed in a viscous fluid of infinite extent is studied in low Reynolds number hydrodynamics. The instantaneous swimming velocity and rate of dissipation are expressed in terms of the…

Rheotaxis is a well-known phenomenon among microbial organisms and artificial active colloids, wherein the swimmers respond to an imposed flow. We report the first experimental evidence of upstream rheotaxis by spherical active droplets. It…

A design for a pump is suggested which is based on well-known peristaltic pumps. In order to simply describe the operation of the proposed pump, an innovative interpretation of low Reynolds number swimmers is presented and thereafter a…

In the study of microscopic flows, self-propulsion has been particularly topical in recent years, with the rise of miniature artificial swimmers as a new tool for flow control, low Reynolds number mixing, micromanipulation or even drug…

We address the swimming problem at low Reynolds number. This regime, which is typically used for micro-swimmers, is described by Stokes equations. We couple a PDE solver of Stokes equations, derived from the Feel++ finite elements library,…