Related papers: Efficiency limits of the three-sphere swimmer
We present new unconstrained simulations and constrained experiments of a pair of pitching hydrofoils in a leader-follower in-line arrangement. Free-swimming simulations of foils with $matched$ pitching amplitudes show self-organization…
We study the fluid dynamics of two fish-like bodies with synchronised swimming patterns. Our studies are based on two-dimensional simulations of viscous incompressible flows. We distinguish between motion patterns that are externally…
Recent findings of possible applications of bio-friendly synthetic self-phoretic swimmers, have motivated the researchers in investigating the various motion-generating mechanisms to optimize the operating characteristics of the same. In…
It is shown that the system efficiency of a self-propelled flexible body is ill-defined unless one considers the concept of quasi-propulsive efficiency, defined as the ratio of the power needed to tow a body in rigid-straight condition over…
To swim through a viscous fluid, a flagellated bacterium must overcome the fluid drag on its body by rotating a flagellum or a bundle of multiple flagella. Because the drag increases with the size of bacteria, it is expected theoretically…
We consider the dynamics of a microswimmer and show that they can be approximated by active Brownian motion. The swimmer is modeled by coupled overdamped Langevin equations with periodic driving. We compare the energy dissipation of the…
The controllability of a fully three-dimensional $N$-link swimmer is studied. After deriving the equations of motion in a low Reynolds number fluid by means of Resistive Force Theory, the controllability of the minimal $2$-link swimmer is…
To evaluate the swimming performances of aquatic animals, an important dimensionless quantity is the Strouhal number, St = fA/U, with f the tail-beat frequency, A the peak-to-peak tail amplitude, and U the swimming velocity. Experiments…
Metachronal swimming, the sequential beating of limbs with a small phase lag, is observed in many organisms at various scales, but has been studied mostly in the limits of high or low Reynolds numbers. Motivated by the swimming of brine…
Microswimming cells and robots exhibit diverse behaviours due to both their swimming and their environment. One of the core environmental features impacting inertialess swimming is background flows. While the influence of select flows,…
Suspensions of unicellular microswimmers such as flagellated bacteria or motile algae exhibit spontaneous density heterogeneities at large enough concentrations. Based on the relative location of the biological actuation appendages i.e.…
In this article, we consider a swimmer (i.e. a self-deformable body) immersed in a fluid, the flow of which is governed by the stationary Stokes equations. This model is relevant for studying the locomotion of microorganisms or micro robots…
Computational models of aquatic locomotion range from individual modest simple swimmers in 2D to sophisticated 3D individual swimmers to complex multi-swimmer models that attempt to parse collective behavioral dynamics. Each of these models…
Experiments are reported on intermittent swimming motions. Water tunnel experiments on a nominally two-dimensional pitching foil show that the mean thrust and power scale linearly with the duty cycle, from a value of 0.2 all the way up to…
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…
Swimming, i.e., being able to advance in the absence of external forces by performing cyclic shape changes, is particularly demanding at low Reynolds numbers which is the regime of interest for micro-organisms and micro-robots. We focus on…
In this paper we study the motion of three linked ellipses moving through a viscous fluid in two dimensions. The angles between the ellipses change with time in a specified manner (the gait) and the resulting time varying configuration is…
We simulate the self-propulsion of devices in a fluid in the regime of low Reynolds numbers. Each device consists of three bodies (spheres or capsules) connected with two damped harmonic springs. Sinusoidal driving forces compress the…
We use reinforcement learning to find strategies that allow microswimmers in turbulence to avoid regions of large strain. This question is motivated by the hypothesis that swimming microorganisms tend to avoid such regions to minimise the…
The swimming of a pair of spherical bladders that change their volumes and mutual distance is efficient at low Reynolds numbers and is superior to other models of artificial swimmers. The change of shape resembles the wriggling motion known…