Related papers: Viscoelastic propulsion of a rotating dumbbell
In several biologically relevant situations, cell locomotion occurs in polymeric fluids with Weissenberg {number} larger than one. Here we present results of three-dimensional numerical simulations for the steady locomotion of a…
The propagation characteristics of fluid vortices, particularly monopoles and dipoles, in a homogeneous viscoelastic fluid were reported in a recent publication [ Phys. Plasmas 23, 013707 (2016)]. In that study, a dusty plasma was modeled…
The motion of a rotating helical body in a viscoelastic fluid is considered. In the case of force-free swimming, the introduction of viscoelasticity can either enhance or retard the swimming speed and locomotive efficiency, depending on the…
Swimming microorganisms often have to propel in complex, non-Newtonian fluids. We carry out experiments with self-propelling helical swimmers driven by an externally rotating magnetic field in shear-thinning, inelastic fluids. Similarly to…
We study the emergent orientational dynamics of a dumbbell dimer -- two asymmetric monomers connected by a linking spring -- in a three-dimensional chiral environment with odd viscosity. In classical systems with conserved parity symmetry,…
Many microorganisms swim in fluids with complex rheological properties. Although much is now understood about motion of these swimmers in Newtonian fluids, the understanding is still developing in non-Newtonian fluids --- this understanding…
We study theoretically the viscoelastic properties of sheared binary fluids that have strong dynamical asymmetry between the two components. The dynamical asymmetry arises due to asymmetry between the viscoelastic stresses, particularly the…
Actuating periodically an elastic filament in a viscous liquid generally breaks the constraints of Purcell's scallop theorem, resulting in the generation of a net propulsive force. This observation suggests a method to design simple…
Microorganisms such as algae and bacteria move in a viscous environment with extremely low Reynolds ($Re$), where the viscous drag dominates the inertial forces. They have adapted to this environment by developing specialized features such…
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…
Microorganisms and synthetic microswimmers often encounter complex environments consisting of networks of obstacles embedded into viscous fluids. Such settings include biological media, such as mucus with filamentous networks, as well as…
Motivated by the swimming of sperm in the non-Newtonian fluids of the female mammalian reproductive tract, we examine the swimming of filaments in the nonlinear viscoelastic Upper Convected Maxwell model. We obtain the swimming velocity and…
Controlled movement and manipulation of magnetic micro and nanostructures using magnetic forces can give rise to important applications in biomedecine, diagnostics and immunology. We report controlled magnetophoresis and stretching, in…
The habitat of microorganisms is typically complex and viscoelastic. A natural question arises: Do polymers in a suspension of active swimmers enhance chaotic motion or promote orientational order? We address this issue by performing…
The propulsion of many eukaryotic cells is generated by flagella, flexible slender filaments that are actively oscillating in space and time. The dynamics of these biological appendages have inspired the design of many types of artificial…
The main motivation of this work is the quantitative prediction and description of particle manipulation (displacement across streamlines) in microfluidic flow. Much attention has been paid recently to placing particles in fast oscillatory…
Systems of motile microorganisms exhibit a multitude of collective phenomena, including motility-induced phase separation and turbulence. Sensing of the environment and adaptation of movement plays an essential role in the emergent…
A flexible membrane deforming its shape in time can self-propel in a viscous fluid. Alternatively, if the membrane is anchored, its deformation will lead to fluid transport. Past work in this area focused on situations where the deformation…
We study swimming of small spherical particles who regulate fluid flow on their surface by applying tangential squirming strokes. We derive translational and rotational velocities for any given stroke which is not restricted by axial…
Microorganism motility often takes place within complex, viscoelastic fluid environments, e.g., sperm in cervicovaginal mucus and bacteria in biofilms. In such complex fluids, strains and stresses generated by the microorganism are stored…