Related papers: Squirming through shear-thinning fluids
The rotational diffusive motion of a self-propelled, attractive spherical colloid immersed in a solution of self-avoiding polymers is studied by mesoscale hydrodynamic simulations. A drastic enhancement of the rotational diffusion by more…
Recent research has shown that motile cells can adapt their mode of propulsion depending on the environment in which they find themselves. One mode is swimming by blebbing or other shape changes, and in this paper we analyze a class of…
With a detail microscopic model for a self-propelled swimmer, we derive the rheological properties of a dilute suspension of such particles at small Peclet numbers. It is shown that, in addition to the Einstein's like contribution to the…
We address the problem of steady laminar flow of a shear-thinning fluid in rectangular ducts, which is encountered in many systems, in particular, in microfluidic and biomedical devices. However, an exact solution for the flow of…
Motivated by recent advances in vesicle engineering, we consider theoretically the locomotion of shape-changing bilayer vesicles at low Reynolds number. By modulating their volume and membrane composition, the vesicles can be made to change…
Understanding the microscopic origin of the rheological behavior of soft matter is a long-lasting endeavour. While early efforts concentrated mainly on the relationship between rheology and structure, current research focuses on the role of…
The following is an unedited version of two short articles that are forthcoming in Nature Chemical Engineering. Inspired by Purcell's classic lecture "Life at low Reynolds number", I discuss how scaling arguments, dimensional analysis, and…
We consider the motion of a fluid-immersed negatively buoyant particle in the vicinity of a thin compressible elastic wall, a situation that arises in a variety of technological and natural settings. We use scaling arguments to establish…
Complex physical systems which exhibit fluid-like behavior are often modeled as non-Newtonian fluids. A crucial element of a non-Newtonian model is the rheology, which relates inner stresses with strain-rates. We propose a framework for…
Nonlinearities in constitutive equations of extended objects in shear flow lead to novel phenomena, {\it e.g.} "rheochaos" in solutions of wormlike micelles and "elastic turbulence" in polymer solutions. Since both phenomena involve…
Due to the kinematic reversibility of Stokes flow, a body executing a reciprocal motion (a motion in which the sequence of body configurations remains identical under time reversal) cannot propel itself in a viscous fluid in the limit of…
The macroscopic properties of polymeric fluids are inherited from the material properties of the fibers embedded in the solvent. The behavior of such passive fibers in flow has been of interest in a wide range of systems, including cellular…
The intricate wobbling motion of flagellated bacteria, characterized by the periodic precession of the cell body, is a determinant factor in their motility and navigation within complex fluid environments. While well-studied in quiescent…
In this paper, we give formulas for the swimming of simplified two-dimensional bodies in complex fluids using the reciprocal theorem. By way of these formulas we calculate the swimming velocity due to small-amplitude deformations on the…
Dense suspensions of soft colloidal particles display a broad range of physical and rheological properties which are still far from being fully understood. To elucidate the role of deformability on colloidal flow, we employ computer…
Linear stability of horizontal and inclined stratified channel flows of Newtonian/non-Newtonian shear-thinning fluids is investigated with respect to all wavelength perturbations. The Carreau model has been chosen for the modeling of the…
Many soft materials, including foams, dense emulsions, micro gel bead suspensions, star polymers, dense packing of surfactant onion micelles, and textured morphologies of liquid crystals, share the basic "glassy" features of structural…
Self-propelled microorganisms, such as unicellular algae or bacteria, swim along their director relative to the fluid velocity. Under a steady shear flow the director rotates in close orbit, a periodic structure that is preserved under an…
Organisms often swim through fluids that are spatially inhomogeneous. If the fluids are polymeric, gradients in polymer concentration may lead to gradients in both fluid viscosity and elasticity. In this letter, we present theoretical…
Microswimmers play an important role in shaping the world around us. The squirmer is a simple model for microswimmer whose cilia oscillations on its spherical surface induce an effective slip velocity to propel itself. The rapid development…