Related papers: A frictionless microswimmer
In this work a finite element simulation of the motion of a rigid body in a fluid, with free surface, is described. A completely general referential description (of which both Lagrangian and Eulerian descriptions are special cases) of an…
It is shown that the system efficiency of a self-propelled flexible body is ill-defined unless one considers the concept of quasi-propulsive efficiency, defined as the ratio of the power needed to tow a body in rigid-straight condition over…
The swimming of an assembly of rigid spheres immersed in a viscous fluid of infinite extent is studied in low Reynolds number hydrodynamics. The instantaneous swimming velocity and rate of dissipation are expressed in terms of the…
Biological microswimmers such as bacteria and sperm cells often encounter complex biological fluid environments. Here we use the well-known squirmer microswimmer model to show the importance of the local fluid microstructure and…
In this paper we study a mathematical model of one-dimensional swimmers performing a planar motion while fully immersed in a viscous fluid. The swimmers are assumed to be of small size, and all inertial effects are neglected. Hydrodynamic…
Microscopic robots could perform tasks with high spatial precision, such as acting in biological tissues on the scale of individual cells, provided they can reach precise locations. This paper evaluates the feasibility of in vivo locomotion…
The hydrodynamics of a flagellated microorganism is investigated when swimming close to a planar free-slip surface by means of numerical solu- tions of the Stokes equations obtained via a Boundary Element Method. Depending on the initial…
Swimming cells often have to self-propel through fluids displaying non-Newtonian rheology. While past theoretical work seems to indicate that stresses arising from complex fluids should systematically hinder low-Reynolds number locomotion,…
Flow in fractured porous media is modeled frequently by discrete fracture-matrix approaches where fractures are treated as dimensionally reduced manifolds. Generalizing earlier work we focus on two-phase flow in time-dependent fracture…
A new mechanism for micro-swimmer motion in an aquatic environment, which implies light-induced polarization perturbations as a motivation for its motion, is proposed. The mechanism assumes that natural light leads to an enhancement of the…
Biological organisms swimming at low Reynolds number are often influenced by the presence of rigid boundaries and soft interfaces. In this paper we present an analysis of locomotion near a free surface with surface tension. Using a…
Sand is a highly dissipative system, where the local spatial arrangements and densities depend strongly on the applied forces, resulting in fluid-like or solid-like behaviour. This makes sand swimming challenging and intriguing, raising…
We experimentally study the motion of light-activated colloidal microswimmers in a viscoelastic fluid. We find that, in such a non-Newtonian environment, the active colloids undergo an unexpected transition from enhanced angular diffusion…
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…
Selective heating of a microparticle surface had been observed to cause its autonomous movement in a fluid medium due to self-generated temperature gradients. In this work, we theoretically investigate the response of such an…
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…
The locomotion and design of microswimmers are topical issues of current fundamental and applied research. In addition to numerous living and artificial active microswimmers, a passive microswimmer was identified only recently: a soft,…
Contrasting the well explored problem on how to steer a macroscopic agent like an airplane or a moon lander to optimally reach a target, "optimal microswimming", i.e. the quest for the optimal navigation strategy for microswimmers, remains…
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…
Hot microswimmers are self-propelled Brownian particles that exploit local heating for their directed self-thermophoretic motion. We provide a pedagogical overview of the key physical mechanisms underlying this promising new technology. It…