Related papers: Propulsion of a two-sphere swimmer
Many microorganisms swim through gels and non-Newtonian fluids in their natural environments. In this paper, we focus on microorganisms which use flagella for propulsion. We address how swimming velocities are affected in nonlinearly…
The two dimensional incompressible viscous flow past a flapping foil immersed in a uniform stream is studied numerically. Numerical simulations were performed using a Lattice-Boltzmann model for moderate Reynolds numbers. The computation of…
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…
It has been known for some time that some microorganisms can swim faster in high-viscosity gel-forming polymer solutions. These gel-like media come to mimic highly viscous heterogeneous environment that these microorganisms encounter…
We perform hydrodynamic simulations using the method of multi-particle collision dynamics and a theoretical analysis to study a single squirmer microswimmer at high P\'eclet number, which moves in a low Reynolds number fluid and under…
Many microorganisms find themselves immersed in fluids displaying non-Newtonian rheological properties such as viscoelasticity and shear-thinning viscosity. The effects of viscoelasticity on swimming at low Reynolds numbers have already…
The dynamics and stability of a fluid-filled hollow cylindrical shell rolling on an inclined plane are analyzed. We study the motion in two dimensions by analyzing the interaction between the fluid and the cylindrical shell. An analytical…
Swimming cells often have to self-propel through fluids displaying non-Newtonian rheology. While past theoretical work seems to indicate that stresses arising from complex fluids should systematically hinder low-Reynolds number locomotion,…
We present a numerical study on the transverse flow-induced vibration (FIV) of an elastically mounted sphere in the vicinity of a free surface at subcritical Reynolds numbers. To begin, We verify and analyze the mode transitions and the…
We perform numerical simulations of odd microswimmers consisting of three spheres and two odd springs. To describe the hydrodynamic interaction, both the Oseen-type and the Rotne-Prager-Yamakawa (RPY)-type mobilities are used. For the…
We develop a minimal hydrodynamic model, without an orientational order parameter, for assemblies of contractile swimmers encapsulated in a droplet of a binary-fluid emulsion. Our model uses two coupled scalar order parameters, $\phi$ and…
We experimentally study a scallop-like swimmer with reciprocally flapping wings in a nearly frictionless, cohesive granular medium consisting of hydrogel spheres. Significant locomotion is found when the swimmer's flapping frequency matches…
E. M. Purcell showed that a body has to perform non-reciprocal motion in order to propel itself in a highly viscous environment. The swimmer with one degree of freedom is bound to do reciprocal motion, whereby the center of mass of the…
We discuss experimental investigations on steady streaming flows of dilute and semi-dilute polymer solutions in microfluidic devices. The effect of non-Newtonian behavior on steady streaming for different model fluids is determined by…
This paper presents results from a flow visualization study of the wake structures behind solid spheres rising or falling freely in liquids under the action of gravity. These show remarkable differences to the wake structures observed…
We study the turbulent square duct flow of dense suspensions of neutrally-buoyant spherical particles. Direct numerical simulations (DNS) are performed in the range of volume fractions $\phi=0-0.2$, using the immersed boundary method (IBM)…
Low Reynolds number swimmers frequently move near boundaries, such as spirochetes moving through porous tissues and sperm navigating the reproductive tract. Furthermore, these microorganisms must often navigate non-Newtonian fluids such as…
A body immersed in a highly viscous fluid can locomote by drawing in and expelling fluid through pores at its surface. We consider this mechanism of jet propulsion without inertia in the case of spheroidal bodies, and derive both the…
Viscous streaming is an efficient rectification mechanism to exploit flow inertia at small scales for fluid and particle manipulation. It typically entails a fluid vibrating around an immersed solid feature that, by concentrating stresses,…
We analyse the motion of a flagellated bacterium in a two-fluid medium using slender body theory. The two-fluid model is useful for describing a body moving through a complex fluid with a microstructure whose length scale is comparable to…