Related papers: Swimming in Granular Media
The hydrodynamic flow field generated by self-propelled active particles and swimming microorganisms is strongly altered by the presence of nearby boundaries in a viscous flow. Using a simple model three-linked sphere swimmer, we show that…
We perform experiments with a granular system that consists of a collection of identical hollow spheres (ping-pong balls). Particles rest on a horizontal metallic grid and are confined within a circular region. Fluidization is achieved by…
It has been argued that an extended, quasi-rigid body evolving freely in curved spacetime can deviate from its natural trajectory by simply performing cyclic deformations. More interestingly, in the limit of rapid cycles, the amount of…
We study the fluid drift due to a time-dependent dumbbell model of a microswimmer. The model captures important aspects of real microswimmers such as a time-dependent flagellar motion and a no-slip body. The model consists of a rigid sphere…
Propulsion at microscopic scales is often achieved through propagating traveling waves along hair-like organelles called flagella. Taylor's two-dimensional swimming sheet model is frequently used to provide insight into problems of…
Most classical work on the hydrodynamics of low-Reynolds-number swimming addresses deterministic locomotion in quiescent environments. Thermal fluctuations in fluids are known to lead to a Brownian loss of the swimming direction. As most…
This paper presents an experimental and numerical investigation of solid-liquid fluidized beds consisting of bonded spheres in very narrow tubes, i.e., when the ratio between the tube and grain diameters is small. In narrow beds, high…
Natural habitats of most living microorganisms are distinguished by a complex structure often formed by a porous medium such as soil. The dynamics and transport properties of motile microorganisms are strongly affected by crowded and…
We discuss a micro-swimmer model made of three spheres actuated by an internal active time-periodic force, tied by an elastic potential and submitted to hydrodynamic interactions with thermal noise. The dynamical approach we use, replacing…
A collection of microswimmers immersed in an incompressible fluid is characterised by strong interactions due to the long-range nature of the hydrodynamic fields generated by individual organisms. As a result, suspensions of rear-actuated…
We simulate the granulation process of solid spherical particles in the presence of a viscous liquid in a horizontal rotating drum by using molecular dynamics simulations in three dimensions. The numerical approach accounts for the cohesive…
The penetration of projectiles into granular materials has been mainly studied using spherical intruders. Here we explore the dynamics of rods penetrating vertically in a two-dimensional granular bed composed of expanded polystyrene…
Three-dimensional simulations with fully resolved hydrodynamics are performed to study the collective motion of model swimmers in confinement. We show that certain swimming mechanisms can lead to traveling wave-like collective motion even…
Fluidized beds consist of solid particles suspended in a tube by an ascending fluid. In liquids, it is not rare that particles adhere to each other, decreasing the solid-liquid contact area and the ratio between the tube and grain…
There is increasing evidence that mammalian cells not only crawl on substrates but can also swim in fluids. To elucidate the mechanisms of the onset of motility of cells in suspension, a model which couples actin and myosin kinetics to…
Swimming in circles occurs in a variety of situations at low Reynolds number. Here we propose a simple model for a swimmer that undergoes circular motion, generalising the model of a linear swimmer proposed by Najafi and Golestanian (Phys.…
We analyse a simple 'Stokesian squirmer' model for the enhanced mixing due to swimming micro-organisms. The model is based on a calculation of Thiffeault & Childress [Physics Letters A, 374, 3487 (2010), arXiv:0911.5511], where fluid…
We study density waves in the flows of granular particles through vertical tubes and hoppers using both analytic methods and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. We construct equations of motion for quasi one-dimensional systems. The…
A fluidized bed is basically a suspension of granular material by an ascending fluid in a tube, and it has a rich dynamics that includes clustering and pattern formation. When the ratio between the tube and grain diameters is small,…
Using numerical simulations, we characterized the behavior of an elastic membrane immersed in an active fluid. Our findings reveal a nontrivial folding and re-expansion of the membrane that is controlled by the interplay of its resistance…