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This work presents a novel numerical investigation of the dynamics of free-boundary flows of viscoelastic liquid membranes. The governing equation describes the balance of linear momentum, in which the stresses include the viscoelastic…
Cell motility in viscous fluids is ubiquitous and affects many biological processes, including reproduction, infection, and the marine life ecosystem. Here we review the biophysical and mechanical principles of locomotion at the small…
We investigate how randomly oriented cell traction forces lead to fluidisation in a vertex model of epithelial tissues. We find that the fluidisation occurs at a critical value of the traction force magnitude $F_c$. We show that this…
We use existing 3D Discrete Element simulations of simple shear flows of spheres to evaluate the radial distribution function at contact that enables kinetic theory to correctly predict the pressure and the shear stress, for different…
This study presents a numerical investigation of how fluid viscoelasticity influences the flow dynamics past a transversely forced oscillating cylinder in the laminar vortex shedding regime at a fixed Reynolds number of 100. In particular,…
We develop a theory for polymer translocation driven by a time-dependent force through an oscillating nanopore. To this end, we extend the iso-flux tension propagation theory (IFTP) [Sarabadani \textit{et al., J. Chem. Phys.}, 2014,…
It is known from the wave-like motion of microtubules in motility assays that the piconewton forces that motors produce can be sufficient to bend the filaments. In cellular phenomena such as cytosplasmic streaming, molecular motors…
Recent experiments proposed to use confined bacteria in order to generate flows near surfaces. We develop a mathematical and a computational model of this fluid transport using a linear superposition of fundamental flow singularities. The…
Nonhelical turbulence within a linear shear flow has demonstrated efficient amplification of large-scale magnetic fields in numerical simulations, but its precise mechanism remains elusive. The incoherent $\alpha$ mechanism proposes that a…
Blob-filaments (or simply 'blobs') are coherent structures formed by turbulence and sustained by nonlinear processes in the edge and scrape-off layer (SOL) of tokamaks and other magnetically confined plasmas. The dynamics of these…
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…
Effective organismal behavior responds appropriately to changes in the surrounding environment. Attaining this delicate balance of sensitivity and stability is a hallmark of the animal kingdom. By studying the locomotory behavior of a…
An analytic, asymptotic approximation of the nonlinear steady-state equations for viscoelastic creeping flow, modeled by the Oldroyd-B equations with polymer stress diffusion, is derived. Near the extensional stagnation point the flow…
We study, by means of extensive direct numerical simulations, the turbulent flow produced by a two-dimensional cellular forcing in a cubic box with periodic boundary conditions. In spite of the strong anisotropy of the forcing, we find that…
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…
Equilibrium self-assembly and conventional materials processing techniques fall far short of mimicking dynamic self-actuating processes that are commonplace throughout biology. To bridge the gap between living and synthetic matter, we study…
The current work studies the dynamics of a microswimmer in pressure-driven flow of a weakly viscoelastic fluid. Employing the second-order fluid model, we show that the self-propelling swimmer experiences a viscoelastic swimming lift in…
We develop a general hydrodynamic theory describing a system of interacting actively propelling particles of arbitrary shape suspended in a viscous fluid. We model the active part of the particle motion using a slip velocity prescribed on…
Swimming microorganisms often have to propel in complex, non-Newtonian fluids. We carry out experiments with self-propelling helical swimmers driven by an externally rotating magnetic field in shear-thinning, inelastic fluids. Similarly to…
Left-right axis specification establishes embryonic laterality through asymmetric signaling cascades originating at the cellular scale. We previously reported the presence of a directionality bias in confined pairs of endothelial (and…