Efficiency of cargo towing by a microswimmer.

We study the properties of an arbitrary microswimmer towing a passive load through a viscous liquid. The simple close-form expression for the dragging efficiency of a microswimmer dragging a distant load is found, and the approximation for finite mutual proximity is derived. We show that, while the swimmer can be arbitrarily efficient, the dragging efficiency is always bounded from above. It is also demonstrated, that opposite to Purcell's assumption [E. M. Purcell, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 94, 11307 (1997)], the hydrodynamic coupling can "help" the propeller to tow the load. We support our conclusions by rigorous numerical calculations for the rotary swimmer, towing a spherical cargo positioned at a finite distance.

• Publication year

  2008

• Venue

  Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics

• Publication date

  2008-01-25

• Fields of study

  Medicine, Physics

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1103/PhysRevE.77.055305arXiv 0801.3884PMID 18643126
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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