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Microorganisms often encounter anisotropy, for example in mucus and biofilms. We study how anisotropy and elasticity of the ambient fluid affects the speed of a swimming microorganism with a prescribed stroke. Motivated by recent…
Nematodes have evolved to swim in highly viscous environments. Artificial mechanisms that mimic the locomotory functions of nematodes can be efficient viscous pumps. We experimentally simulate the motion of the head segment of…
Recently, long and slender living worms have garnered significant interest because of their impressive ability to exhibit diverse emergent behaviors in highly entangled physical and topological conditions. These worms can form an active…
The dynamics of an adhesive two-dimensional vesicle doublet under various flow conditions is investigated numerically using a high-order, adaptive-in-time boundary integral method. In a quiescent flow, two nearby vesicles move slowly…
It has been shown that an anisotropic liquid crystalline (LC) environment can be used to guide the self-propulsion dynamics of dispersed microswimmers, such as bacteria. This type of composite system is named "living nematic" (LN). In the…
We analyze the dynamics of small particles vertically confined, by means of a linear restoring force, to move within a horizontal fluid slab in a three-dimensional (3D) homogeneous isotropic turbulent velocity field. The model that we…
We experimentally studied the locomotion of the nematode C. elegans in both fluidic and granular media. In this fluid dynamics video, we show the motility gaits of the nematode in these two environments. The motility of the nematode C.…
We study a simple model of periodic contraction and extension of large intruders in a granular bed to understand the mechanism for swimming in an otherwise solid media. Using an event-driven simulation, we find optimal conditions that…
We present a numerical method to deal efficiently with large numbers of particles in incompressible fluids. The interactions between particles and fluid are taken into account by a physically motivated ansatz based on locally defined drag…
We study experimentally the motion of an intruder dragged into an amorphous monolayer of horizontally vibrated grains at high packing fractions. This motion exhibits two transitions. The first transition separates a continuous motion regime…
We present the results of hydrodynamic simulations using the method of multi-particle collision dynamics for a system of squirmer microswimmers moving under the influence of gravity at low Reynolds numbers. In addition, the squirmers are…
The effects of fluid elasticity on the swimming behavior of the nematode \emph{Caenorhabditis elegans} are experimentally investigated by tracking the nematode's motion and measuring the corresponding velocity fields. We find that fluid…
Dissipative environments are ubiquitous in nature, from microscopic swimmers in low-Reynolds-number fluids to macroscopic animals in frictional media. In this study, motivated by various behaviours of {\it Caenorhabditis elegans} during…
Active matter comprised of self-propelled interacting units holds a major promise for extraction of useful work from its seemingly chaotic out-of-equilibrium dynamics. Streamlining active matter to produce work is especially important at…
The swimming of a deformable planar slab in a viscous incompressible fluid is studied on the basis of the Navier-Stokes equations. A continuum of plane wave displacements, symmetric on both sides of the slab and characterized by a…
Unsteady flows generated when a body approaches or departs from a granular bed arise in swimming, burrowing, and maneuvering devices. Yet, the threshold for grain motion in such transients remains poorly modeled due to the complexity of the…
In this paper, the effectiveness of electromagnetic forces on controlling the motion of a sedimenting elliptical particle is investigated using the immersed interface-lattice Boltzmann method (II-LBM), in which a signed distance function is…
The hydrodynamic interactions between a sedimenting microswimmer and a solid wall have ubiquitous biological and technological applications. A plethora of gravity-induced swimming dynamics near a planar no-slip wall provides a platform for…
Fluid-resistance limited transport of vesicles through narrow constrictions is a recurring theme in many biological and engineering applications. Inspired by the motor-driven movement of soft membrane-bound vesicles into closed neuronal…
The sedimentation of a spherical particle in an elastoviscoplastic fluid in proximity of a flat wall is investigated by direct numerical simulations. The governing equations under inertialess conditions are solved by the finite element…