Related papers: Passive swimming in low Reynolds number flows
An axisymmetric squirmer in a Bingham viscoplastic fluid is studied numerically to determine the effect of a yield stress environment on locomotion. The nonlinearity of the governing equations necessitates numerical methods, which is…
An optimal microswimmer with a given geometry has a surface velocity profile that minimizes energy dissipation for a given swimming speed. An axisymmetric swimmer can be puller-, pusher-, or neutral-type depending on the sign of the…
The motion of biological micro-robots -- similar to that of swimming microorganisms such as bacteria or spermatozoa -- is governed by different physical rules than what we experience in our daily life. This is particularly due to the…
We investigate theoretically the collective dynamics of a suspension of low Reynolds number swimmers that are confined to two dimensions by a thin fluid film. Our model swimmer is characterized by internal degrees of freedom which locally…
In the limit of zero Reynolds number (Re), swimmers propel themselves exploiting a series of non-reciprocal body motions. For an artificial swimmer, a proper selection of the power source is required to drive its motion, in cooperation with…
The dynamical analysis of shear flows remains challenging, as turbulence generation and evolution are not fully understood. Here, a lesser-explored feature of incompressible shear flows-the absorbing zone-is investigated. This region in the…
The current study presents a systematic investigation of the locomotion performance of a swimmer with a wide range of parameter settings. Two-dimensional simulations with the immersed boundary method are employed for the fluid-structure…
The dynamics of two-dimensional viscous vesicles in shear flow, with different fluid viscosities $\eta_{\rm in}$ and $\eta_{\rm out}$ inside and outside, respectively, is studied using mesoscale simulation techniques. Besides the well-known…
Many aquatic microorganisms are able to swim. In natural environments they typically do so in the presence of flows. In recent years it has been shown that the interplay of swimming and flows can give rise to interesting and biologically…
A minimal design for a molecular swimmer is proposed that is a based on a mechanochemical propulsion mechanism. Conformational changes are induced by electrostatic actuation when specific parts of the molecule temporarily acquire net…
Mesoscale filtering and protective layers are replete throughout the natural world. Within the body, arrays of extracellular proteins, microvilli, and cilia can act as both protective layers and mechanosensors. For example, blood flow…
We study the fully nonlinear, nonlocal dynamics of two-dimensional multicomponent vesicles in a shear flow with matched viscosity of the inner and outer fluids. Using a nonstiff, pseudo-spectral boundary integral method, we investigate…
Microflows are intensively used for investigating and controlling the dynamics of particles, including soft particles such as biological cells and capsules. A classic result is the tank-treading motion of elliptically deformed soft…
Turbulent cascades characterize the transfer of energy injected by a random force at large scales towards the small scales. In hydrodynamic turbulence, when the Reynolds number is large, the velocity field of the fluid becomes irregular and…
In this paper, we investigate the relations between global and local energy transfers in a turbulent von K\'arm\'an flow. The goal is to understand how and where energy is dissipated in such a flow and to reconstruct the energy cycle in an…
The emerging field of self-driven active particles in fluid environments has recently created significant interest in the biophysics and bioengineering communities owing to their promising future biomedical and technological applications.…
The self-propulsion of artificial and biological microswimmers (i.e., active colloidal particles) has often been modelled by using a force and a torque entering into the overdamped equations for the Brownian motion of passive particles.…
The dynamics of the Reynolds stress tensor for turbulent flows is described with an evolution equation coupling both geometric effects and turbulent source terms. The effects of the mean flow geometry are shown up when the source terms are…
An analytical theory is developed to describe the dynamics of a closed lipid bilayer membrane (vesicle) freely suspended in a general linear flow. Considering a nearly spherical shape, the solution to the creeping-flow equations is obtained…
The concept of swim pressure quantifies the average force exerted by microswimmers on confining walls in non-equilibrium. Here we explore how the swim pressure depends on the wall curvature and on the presence of sharp corners in the wall.…