Related papers: Shapes enhancing the propulsion of multiflagellate…
Understanding and optimizing the design of helical micro-swimmers is crucial for advancing their application in various fields. This study presents an innovative approach combining Free-Form Deformation with Bayesian Optimization to enhance…
We combine a general formulation of microswimmmer equations of motion with a numerical bead-shell model to calculate the hydrodynamic interactions with the fluid, from which the swimming speed, power and efficiency are extracted. From this…
In a fluid environment, flagellated microswimmers propel themselves by rotating their flagella. The morphology of these flagella significantly influences forward speed, swimming efficiency, and directional stability, which are critical for…
Propulsion at microscopic scales is often achieved through propagating traveling waves along hair-like organelles called flagella. Taylor's two-dimensional swimming sheet model is frequently used to provide insight into problems of…
Motile eukaryotic cells propel themselves in viscous fluids by passing waves of bending deformation down their flagella. An infinitely long flagellum achieves a hydrodynamically optimal low-Reynolds number locomotion when the angle between…
We study the microscale propulsion of a rotating helical filament confined by a cylindrical tube, using a boundary-element method for Stokes flow that accounts for helical symmetry. We determine the effect of confinement on swimming speed…
The motion of microswimmers in complex flows is ruled by the interplay between swimmer propulsion and the dynamics induced by the fluid velocity field. Here we study the motion of a chiral microswimmer whose propulsion is provided by the…
Many eukaryotic cells use the active waving motion of flexible flagella to self-propel in viscous fluids. However, the criteria governing the selection of particular flagellar waveforms among all possible shapes has proved elusive so far.…
We consider arbitrary-shaped microswimmers of spherical topology and propose a framework for expressing their slip velocity in terms of tangential basis functions defined on the boundary of the swimmer using the Helmholtz decomposition.…
Trajectory tracking for microswimmers remains a key challenge in microrobotics, where low-Reynolds-number dynamics make control design particularly complex. In this work, we formulate the trajectory tracking problem as an optimal control…
Nature has always inspired scientists and engineers to understand the underlying mechanism leading to optimal design in bio-inspired dynamics. This study presents a computational framework for optimizing undulatory swimming profiles using a…
Synthetic microswimmers mimicking biological movements at the microscale have been developed in recent years. Actuating helical magnetic materials with a homogeneous rotating magnetic field is one of the most widespread techniques for…
Motivated by the aim of understanding the effect of media heterogeneity on the swimming dynamics of flagellated bacteria, we study the rotation and swimming of rigid helices in dilute suspensions experimentally and theoretically. We first…
We study two microswimmers consisting of a spherical rigid head and a passive elastic tail. In the first one the tail is clamped to the head, and the system oscillates under the action of an external torque. In the second one, head and tail…
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.…
Many biological microswimmers locomote by periodically beating the densely-packed cilia on their cell surface in a wave-like fashion. While the swimming mechanisms of ciliated microswimmers have been extensively studied both from the…
A system of ferromagnetic particles trapped at a liquid-liquid interface and subjected to a set of magnetic fields (magnetocapillary swimmers) is studied numerically using a hybrid method combining the pseudopotential lattice Boltzmann…
A variety of swimming microorganisms, called ciliates, exploit the bending of a large number of small and densely-packed organelles, termed cilia, in order to propel themselves in a viscous fluid. We consider a spherical envelope model for…
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…
Many eukaryotic microorganisms propelled by multiple flagella can swim very rapidly with distinct gaits. Here, we model a three-dimensional mutiflagellate swimming strategy, resembling the microalgae, and investigate the effects of…