Related papers: Minimal model for transient swimming in a liquid c…
Microorganisms often encounter anisotropy, for example in mucus and biofilms. We study how anisotropy and elasticity of the ambient fluid affects the speed of a swimming microorganism with a prescribed stroke. Motivated by recent…
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…
The swimming behavior of bacteria and other microorganisms is sensitive to the physical properties of the fluid in which they swim. Mucus, biofilms, and artificial liquid-crystalline solutions are all examples of fluids with some degree of…
The swimming of an assembly of rigid spheres immersed in a viscous fluid of infinite extent is studied in low Reynolds number hydrodynamics. The instantaneous swimming velocity and rate of dissipation are expressed in terms of the…
A matrix formulation is derived for the calculation of the swimming speed and the power required for swimming of an assembly of rigid spheres immersed in a viscous fluid of infinite extent. The spheres may have arbitrary radii and may…
The swimming of a spheroid immersed in a viscous fluid and performing surface deformations periodically in time is studied on the basis of Stokes equations of low Reynolds number hydrodynamics. The average over a period of time of the…
Active particles in anisotropic, viscoelastic fluids experience competing stresses which guide their trajectories. An aligned suspension of particles can trigger a hydrodynamic bend instability, but the elasticity of the fluid can drive…
Swimming at small Reynolds number of a linear assembly of identical spheres immersed in a viscous fluid is studied on the basis of a set of equations of motion for the individual spheres. The motion of the spheres is caused by actuating…
Small-scale locomotion plays an important role in biology. Different modelling approaches have been proposed in the past. The simplest model is an infinite inextensible two-dimensional waving sheet, {originally introduced by Taylor}, which…
Taylor's swimming sheet is a classical model of microscale propulsion and pumping. Many biological fluids and substances are fibrous, having a preferred direction in their microstructure; for example cervical mucus is formed of polymer…
The locomotion of swimming bacteria in simple Newtonian fluids can successfully be described within the framework of low Reynolds number hydrodynamics. The presence of polymers in biofluids generally increases the viscosity, which is…
The effects of fluid viscosity on the kinematics of a small swimmer at low Reynolds number are investigated in both experiments and in a simple model. The swimmer is the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, which is an undulating roundworm…
Conventionally, a microscopic particle that performs a reciprocal stroke cannot move through its environment. This is because at small scales, the response of simple Newtonian fluids is purely viscous and flows are time-reversible. We show…
We use the boundary element method to study the low-Reynolds number locomotion of a spherical model microorganism in a circular tube. The swimmer propels itself by tangen- tial or normal surface motion in a tube whose radius is on the order…
We describe experiments and simulations demonstrating the propulsion of a neutrally-buoyant swimmer that consists of a pair of spheres attached by a spring, immersed in a vibrating fluid. The vibration of the fluid induces relative motion…
Microorganisms are rarely found in Nature swimming freely in an unbounded fluid. Instead, they typically encounter other organisms, hard walls, or deformable boundaries such as free interfaces or membranes. Hydrodynamic interactions between…
Many biological fluids are composed of suspended polymers immersed in a viscous fluid. A prime example is mucus, where the polymers are also known to form a network. While the presence of this microstructure is linked with an overall…
How fast must an oriented collection of extensile swimmers swim to escape the instability of viscous active suspensions? We show that the answer lies in the dimensionless combination $R=\rho v_0^2/2\sigma_a$, where $\rho$ is the suspension…
The hydrodynamic stresses created by active particles can destabilise orientational order present in the system. This is manifested, for example, by the appearance of a bend instability in active nematics or in quasi-2-dimensional living…
Low-cost coin vibrational motors, used in haptic feedback, exhibit rotational internal motion inside a rigid case. Because the motor case motion exhibits rotational symmetry, when placed into a fluid such as glycerin, the motor does not…