Related papers: Viscoelastic propulsion of a rotating dumbbell
Using a damped mass-spring model, we simulate wobble of spinning homogeneous viscoelastic ellipsoids undergoing non-principal axis rotation. Energy damping rates are measured for oblate and prolate bodies with different spin rates, spin…
Many microorganisms find themselves immersed in fluids displaying non-Newtonian rheological properties such as viscoelasticity and shear-thinning viscosity. The effects of viscoelasticity on swimming at low Reynolds numbers have already…
Numerical simulations of the flow in an extrusion damper are performed using a finite volume method. The damper is assumed to consist of a shaft, with or without a spherical bulge, oscillating axially in a containing cylinder filled with a…
Microswimmers, and among them aspirant microrobots, generally have to cope with flows where viscous forces are dominant, characterized by a low Reynolds number ($Re$). This implies constraints on the possible sequences of body motion, which…
We discuss the role of elastic stress in the statistical properties of elastic turbulence, realized by the flow of a polymer solution between two disks. The dynamics of the elastic stress are analogous to those of a small scale fast dynamo…
We compute the hydrodynamic torque on a dumbbell (two spheres linked by a massless rigid rod) settling in a quiescent fluid at small but finite Reynolds number. The spheres have the same mass densities but different sizes. When the sizes…
Jets are ubiquitous in astronomy. It has been conjectured that the existence of jets is intimately connected with the spin of the central object and the viscous angular momentum transport of the inner disk. Bipolar jet-like structures…
We determine both the in-plane and out-of-plane dynamics of viscoelastic membranes separating two viscous fluids in order to understand microrheological studies of such membranes. We demonstrate the general viscoelastic signatures in the…
Neural-network models have been employed to predict the instantaneous flow close to the wall in a viscoelastic turbulent channel flow. Numerical simulation data at the wall is utilized to predict the instantaneous velocity-fluctuations and…
Active suspensions encompass a wide range of complex fluids containing microscale energy-injecting particles, such as cells, bacteria or artificially powered active colloids. Because they are intrinsically non-equilibrium, active…
We study the dynamics of extended rod-like bodies in (or associated with) membranes and films. We demonstrate a striking difference between the mobilities in films and bulk fluids, even when the dissipation is dominated by the fluid stress:…
In the absence of inertia, a reciprocal swimmer achieves no net motion in a viscous Newtonian fluid. Here, we investigate the ability of a reciprocally actuated particle to translate through a complex fluid that possesses a network using…
We simulate an experiment in which a colloidal probe is pulled through an active nematic fluid. We find that the drag on the particle is non-Stokesian (not proportional to its radius). Strikingly, a large enough particle in contractile…
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…
At low Reynolds numbers, the hydrodynamic interaction between dumbbells driven by an external rotating field can be attractive or repulsive. Dumbbells of dissimilar asymmetric shape or different coupling to the external field undergo…
A nonlinear dynamical system model that approximates a microscopic Gibbs field model for the yielding of a viscoplastic material subjected to varying external stress recently reported in [1] is presented. The predictions of the model are in…
The biological fluids encountered by self-propelled cells display complex microstructures and rheology. We consider here the general problem of low-Reynolds number locomotion in a complex fluid. {Building on classical work on the transport…
Many microorganisms swim in a highly heterogeneous environment with obstacles such as fibers or polymers. To better understand how this environment affects microorganism swimming, we study propulsion of a cylinder or filament in a fluid…
We develop general methods to calculate the mobilities of extended bodies in (or associated with) membranes and films. We demonstrate a striking difference between in-plane motion of rod-like inclusions and the corresponding case of bulk…
When swimming at low Reynolds numbers, inertial effects are negligible and reciprocal movements cannot induce net motion. Instead, symmetry breaking is necessary to achieve net propulsion. Directed swimming can be supported by magnetic…