Related papers: Swimming in Granular Media
Active matter exhibits various forms of non-equilibrium states in the absence of external forcing, including macroscopic steady-state currents. Such states are often too complex to be modelled from first principles and our understanding of…
This work aims at finding optimal navigation policies for thin, deformable microswimmers that progress in a viscous fluid by propagating a sinusoidal undulation along their slender body. These active filaments are embedded in a prescribed,…
Self-propelled micron-size particles suspended in a fluid, like bacteria or synthetic microswimmers, are strongly non-equilibrium systems where particle motility breaks the microscopic detailed balance, often resulting in large-scale…
The effect of crowding on the run-and-tumble dynamics of swimmers such as bacteria is studied using a discrete lattice model of mutually excluding particles that move with constant velocity along a direction that is randomized at a rate…
A numerical simulation of a gas-fluidized bed is performed without introduction of any empirical parameters. Realistic bubbles and slugs are observed in our simulation. It is found that the convective motion of particles is important for…
The optimal strategy for a microscopic swimmer to migrate across a linear shear flow is discussed. The two cases, in which the swimmer is located at large distance, and in the proximity of a solid wall, are taken into account. It is shown…
We explore the mechanism underlying the anomalous rheology of puller-type microswimmer suspensions through direct hydrodynamic simulations. Puller-type swimmers generate contractile flow fields along their swimming direction, leading to…
Fluidized beds are suspensions of grains by ascending fluids in tubes, and are commonly used in industry given their high rates of mass and heat transfers between the solids and fluid. Although usually employed in large scales (tube…
Run-and-tumble dynamics is a wide-spread mechanism of swimming bacteria. The accumulation of run-and-tumble microswimmers near impermeable surfaces is studied theoretically and numerically in the low-density limit in two and three spatial…
Microorganisms living in microfluidic environments often form multi-species swarms, where they can leverage collective motions to achieve enhanced transport and spreading. Nevertheless, there is a general lack of physical understandings of…
The swimming of a deformable planar slab in a viscous incompressible fluid is studied on the basis of the Navier-Stokes equations. A continuum of plane wave displacements, symmetric on both sides of the slab and characterized by a…
Granular intrusion is commonly observed in natural and human-made settings. Unlike typical solids and fluids, granular media can simultaneously display fluid-like and solid-like characteristics in a variety of intrusion scenarios. This…
The behavior of fluid interfaces far from equilibrium plays central roles in nature and in industry. Active swimmers trapped at interfaces can alter transport at fluid boundaries with far reaching implications. Swimmers can become trapped…
Robotic swimmers are currently a subject of extensive research and development for several underwater applications. Clever design and planning must rely on simple theoretical models that account for the swimmer's hydrodynamics in order to…
Many small organisms self-propel in viscous fluids using travelling wave-like deformation of their bodies or appendages. Examples include small nematodes moving through soil using whole-body undulations or spermatozoa swimming through mucus…
We study the trajectories of a model microorganism inside three-dimensional channels with square and rectangular cross-sections. Using (i) numerical simulations based on lattice-Boltzmann method, and (ii) analytical expressions using…
Squirmers are models of a class of microswimmers, such as ciliated organisms and phoretic particles, that self-propel in fluids without significant deformation of their body shape. Available techniques for their simulation are based on the…
The resuspension and dispersion of particles occur in industrial fluid dynamic processes as well as environmental and geophysical situations. In this paper, we experimentally investigate the ability to fluidize a granular bed with a…
Recent experiments and numerical simulations have shown that certain types of microorganisms "reflect" off of a flat surface at a critical angle of departure, independent of the angle of incidence. The nature of the reflection may be active…
We present a new mechanism for the fluidization of a vibrated granular bed in the presence of interstitial air. We show that the air flow induced across the bed, as the gap in the bottom of the cell evolves, can fluidize the bed in a…