Related papers: Helical locomotion in dilute suspensions
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…
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…
We investigate the dynamics of a pair of rigid rotating helices in a viscous fluid, as a model for bacterial flagellar bundle and a prototype of microfluidic pumps. Combining experiments with hydrodynamic modeling, we examine how spacing…
It has been known for some time that some microorganisms can swim faster in high-viscosity gel-forming polymer solutions. These gel-like media come to mimic highly viscous heterogeneous environment that these microorganisms encounter…
Microbial flagellates typically inhabit complex suspensions of polymeric material which can impact the swimming speed of motile microbes, filter-feeding of sessile cells, and the generation of biofilms. There is currently a need to better…
Many microorganisms and artificial microswimmers use helical appendages in order to generate locomotion. Though often rotated so as to produce thrust, some species of bacteria such Spiroplasma, Rhodobacter sphaeroides and Spirochetes induce…
Motivated by bacterial transport through porous media, here we study the swimming of an actuated, flexible helical filament in both three-dimensional free space and within a cylindrical tube whose diameter is much smaller than the length of…
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…
Motivated by the intriguing motility of spirochetes (helically-shaped bacteria that screw through viscous fluids due to the action of internal periplasmic flagella), we examine the fundamental fluid dynamics of superhelices translating and…
A growing body of work aims at designing and testing micron-scale synthetic swimmers. One method, inspired by the locomotion of flagellated bacteria, consists of applying a rotating magnetic field to a rigid, helically-shaped, propeller…
The physical mechanisms that bring about the propulsion of a rotating helix in a granular medium are considered. A propulsive motion along the axis of the rotating helix is induced by both symmetry breaking due to the helical shape, and the…
We consider a suspension of active rigid particles (swimmers) in a steady Stokes flow, where particles are distributed according to a stationary ergodic random process, and we study its homogenization in the macroscopic limit. A key point…
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…
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…
Electromagnetically propelled helical nanoswimmers offer great potential for nanorobotic applications. Here, the effect of confinement on their propulsion is characterized using lattice-Boltzmann simulations. Two principal mechanisms give…
Some types of bacteria use rotating helical flagella to swim. The motion of such organisms takes place in the regime of low Reynolds numbers where viscous effects dominate and where the dynamics is governed by hydrodynamic interactions.…
Active matter exhibits various forms of non-equilibrium states in the absence of external forcing, including macroscopic steady-state currents. Such states are often too complex to be modelled from first principles and our understanding of…
We combine experiments with simulations to investigate the fluid-structure interaction of a flexible helical rod rotating in a viscous fluid, under low Reynolds number conditions. Our analysis takes into account the coupling between the…
The diffusion of active microscopic organisms in complex environments plays an important role in a wide range of biological phenomena from cell colony growth to single organism transport. Here, we investigate theoretically and…
We study the microrheology of active suspensions through direct hydrodynamic simulations using model pusher-like microswimmers. We demonstrate that the friction coefficient of a probe particle is notably reduced by hydrodynamic interactions…