Related papers: Propulsion via flexible flapping in granular media
Flexible filaments moving in viscous fluids are ubiquitous in the natural microscopic world. For example, the swimming of bacteria and spermatozoa as well as important physiological functions at organ-level, such as the cilia-induced motion…
Fluid-suspended microorganisms have evolved different swimming and feeding strategies in order to cope with an environment dominated by viscous effects. For instance ciliated organisms rely on the collective motion of flexible appendices to…
Locomotion is typically studied either in continuous media where bodies and legs experience forces generated by the flowing medium, or on solid substrates dominated by friction. In the former, centralized coordination is believed to…
The physical mechanisms that bring about the propulsion of a rotating helix in a granular medium are considered. A propulsive motion along the axis of the rotating helix is induced by both symmetry breaking due to the helical shape, and the…
Soft robots, in contrast to their rigid counter parts, have infinite degrees of freedom that are coupled with their interaction with the environment. We consider the locomotion of an untethered robot, in the granular medium, comprised of…
The locomotion of flexible membrane-like organisms on top of curved surfaces appears in different contexts and scales. Still, such dynamics have not yet been quantitatively modeled and no realization of such motion in manmade systems has…
At low Reynolds numbers the locomotive capability of a body can be dramatically hindered by the absence of inertia. In this work, we show how propulsive performance in this regime can be significantly enhanced by employing spatially varying…
The interaction of flexible polymers with fluid flows leads to a number of intriguing phenomena observed in laboratory experiments, namely drag reduction, elastic turbulence and heat transport modification in natural convection, and is one…
Over the past few decades, oscillating flexible foils have been used to study the physics of organismal propulsion in different fluid environments. Here we extend this work to a study of flexible foils in a frictional environment. When the…
The influence of the bending rigidity of a flexible heaving wing on its propulsive performance in a two-dimensional imposed parallel flow is investigated in the inviscid limit. Potential flow theory is used to describe the flow over the…
We combine experiments with simulations to investigate the fluid-structure interaction of a flexible helical rod rotating in a viscous fluid, under low Reynolds number conditions. Our analysis takes into account the coupling between the…
Much of the Earth and many surfaces of extraterrestrial bodies are composed of in-cohesive particle matter. Locomoting on granular terrain is challenging for common robotic devices, either wheeled or legged. In this work, we discover a…
We use particle simulations to reveal two distinct propulsion mechanisms for a scallop-like swimmer to locomote itself in granular media by reciprocally flapping its wings. Based on the discrete element method, we examine the kinematics and…
The dynamics of a flexible filament sedimenting in a viscous fluid are explored analytically and numerically. Compared to the well-studied case of sedimenting rigid rods, the introduction of filament compliance is shown to cause a…
The case of a conventional flexible sheet in a uniform flow has been of interest in understanding the underlying physics of passive coupled dynamics between a flexible structure and a flow field. Gravity is known to influence the flapping…
The motion of flexible fibers through structured fluidic environments is ubiquitous in nature and industrial applications. Most often, their dynamics results from the complex interplay between internal elastic stresses, contact forces and…
Understanding swimming in soft yielding media is challenging due to their complex deformation response to the swimmer's motion. We experimentally show that a scallop-inspired swimmer with reciprocally flapping wings generates locomotion in…
Saving energy and enhancing performance are secular preoccupations shared by both nature and human beings. In animal locomotion, flapping flyers or swimmers rely on the flexibility of their wings or body to passively increase their…
We study the compaction and mobility properties of a dense granular material under weak random vibration. By putting in direct contact millimetric glass beads with piezoelectric transducers we manage to inject energy to the system in a…
In this work, we investigate the forces acting on a flexible fiber dragged through a granular bed. Using discrete element simulations, we observe that, after a sufficiently large displacement, the system reaches a steady state in which both…