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Related papers: Wall curvature driven dynamics of a microswimmer

200 papers

We study the effects of hydrodynamic interactions between a wall and the Purcell three-link swimmer in the two-dimensional case. After deriving the equations of motion in a low Reynolds number regime using Resistive Force Theory with…

Fluid Dynamics · Physics 2026-03-19 Enrico Micalizio , Marco Morandotti , Henry Shum , Marta Zoppello

Catalytic microswimmers typically swim close to walls due to hydrodynamic and/or phoretic effects. The walls in turn are known to affect their propulsion, making it difficult to single out the contributions that stem from particle-based…

From bacteria and sperm cells to artificial microrobots, self-propelled microscopic objects at low Reynolds numbers often perceive fluctuating mechanical and chemical stimuli and contact exterior wall boundaries both in nature and the…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2023-12-22 Yoshiki Hiruta , Kenta Ishimoto

Locomotion and transport of microorganisms in fluids is an essential aspect of life. Search for food, orientation toward light, spreading of off-spring, and the formation of colonies are only possible due to locomotion. Swimming at the…

Biological Physics · Physics 2015-05-26 Jens Elgeti , Roland G. Winkler , Gerhard Gompper

Studies of model microswimmers have significantly contributed to the understanding of the principles of self-propulsion we have today. However, only a small number of microswimmer types have been amenable to analytic modeling, and further…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2021-02-10 Sebastian Ziegler , Maxime Hubert , Nicolas Vandewalle , Jens Harting , Ana-Sunčana-Smith

We study the effect of a nearby planar wall on the propulsion of a phoretic Janus micro-swimmer driven by asymmetric reactions on its surface which absorb reactants and generate products. We show that the behaviour of these swimmers near a…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2017-06-01 Yahaya Ibrahim , Tanniemola B. Liverpool

Microswimmers often use chirality to generate translational movement from rotation motion, exhibiting distinct behaviors in complex fluids compared to simple Newtonian fluids. However, the underlying mechanism remains incompletely…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2024-11-08 Takuya Kobayashi , John J. Molina , Ryoichi Yamamoto

This study investigates the dynamics and controllability of a Purcell three-link microswimmer equipped with passive elastic torsional coils at its joints. By controlling the spontaneous curvature, we analyse the swimmers motion using both…

Mathematical Physics · Physics 2025-02-26 Rossella Attanasi , Marta Zoppello , Gaetano Napoli

In this Letter, we study the collective behaviour of a large number of self-propelled microswimmers immersed in a fluid. Using unprecedently large-scale lattice Boltzmann simulations, we reproduce the transition to bacterial turbulence. We…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2017-07-17 Joakim Stenhammar , Cesare Nardini , Rupert W. Nash , Davide Marenduzzo , Alexander Morozov

In this note, we study the effect of viscosity gradients on the energy dissipated by the motion of microswimmers and the associated efficiency of that motion. Using spheroidal squirmer model swimmers in weak linearly varying viscosity…

Fluid Dynamics · Physics 2024-11-20 Jiahao Gong , Vaseem A. Shaik , Gwynn J. Elfring

Microscale propulsion is integral to numerous biomedical systems, for example biofilm formation and human reproduction, where the surrounding fluids comprise suspensions of polymers. These polymers endow the fluid with non-Newtonian…

Fluid Dynamics · Physics 2018-06-28 David A. Gagnon , Thomas D. Montenegro-Johnson

We study the energy expenditure and structural correlations in semi-dilute to concentrated suspensions of squirmers using active fast Stokesian dynamics simulations. Specifically, we simulate apolar active suspensions of squirmers, or…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2026-03-03 Zhouyang Ge , Gwynn J. Elfring

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…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2023-06-22 Hanliang Guo , Hai Zhu , Ruowen Liu , Marc Bonnet , Shravan Veerapaneni

Catalytic microswimmers convert the chemical energy of a fuel into motion, sustaining spatial chemical gradients and fluid flows that drive their propulsion. This leads to unconventional individual behavior and the emergence of collective…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2024-09-04 Celso Carrasco , Quentin Martinet , Zaiyi Shen , Juho S. Lintuvuori , Jérémie Palacci , Antoine Aubret

We study the effect of a rough wall on the controllability of micro-swimmers made of several balls linked by thin jacks: the so-called 3-sphere and 4-sphere swimmers. We show that a controllable swimmer (the 4-sphere swimmer) is not…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2013-10-07 David Gérard-Varet , Laetitia Giraldi

Microswimmers display an intriguing ability to navigate through fluids with spatially varying viscosity, a behavior known as viscotaxis, which plays a crucial role in guiding their motion. In this study, we reveal that the orientation…

Fluid Dynamics · Physics 2025-06-25 Takuya Kobayashi , Ryoichi Yamamoto

Biological and artificial microswimmers often self-propel in external flows of vortical nature; relevant examples include algae in small-scale ocean eddies, spermatozoa in uterine peristaltic flows and bacteria in microfluidic devices. A…

Biological Physics · Physics 2022-11-14 Ivan Tanasijevic , Eric Lauga

Flagellated bacteria exploiting helical propulsion are known to swim along circular trajectories near surfaces. Fluid dynamics predicts this circular motion to be clockwise (CW) above a rigid surface (when viewed from inside the fluid) and…

Biological Physics · Physics 2014-07-18 Diego Lopez , Eric Lauga

We use a three-bead-spring model to investigate the dynamics of bi-flagellate micro-swimmers near a surface. While the primary dynamics and scattering are governed by geometric-dependent direct contact, the fluid flows generated by the…

Biological Physics · Physics 2017-08-17 Enkeleida Lushi , Vasily Kantsler , Raymond E. Goldstein

The locomotion of microorganisms and spermatozoa in complex viscoelastic fluids is of critical importance in many biological processes such as fertilization, infection, and biofilm formation. Depending on their propulsion mechanisms,…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2021-09-14 Gaojin Li , Eric Lauga , Arezoo M. Ardekani