The role of body flexibility in stroke enhancements for finite-length undulatory swimmers in viscoelastic fluids

The role of passive body dynamics on the kinematics of swimming micro-organisms in complex fluids is investigated. Asymptotic analysis of small-amplitude motions of a finite-length undulatory swimmer in a Stokes–Oldroyd-B fluid is used to predict shape changes that result as body elasticity and fluid elasticity are varied. Results from the analysis are compared with numerical simulations and the numerically simulated shape changes agree with the analysis at both small and large amplitudes, even for strongly elastic flows. We compute a stroke-induced swimming speed that accounts for the shape changes, but not additional effects of fluid elasticity. Elasticity-induced shape changes lead to larger-amplitude strokes for sufficiently soft swimmers in a viscoelastic fluid, and these stroke boosts can lead to swimming speed-ups. However, for the strokes we examine, we find that additional effects of fluid elasticity generically result in a slow-down. Our high amplitude strokes in strongly elastic flows lead to a qualitatively different regime in which highly concentrated elastic stresses accumulate near swimmer bodies and dramatic slow-downs are seen.

• Publication year

  2016

• Venue

  Journal of Fluid Mechanics

• Publication date

  2016-10-07

• Fields of study

  Physics

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1017/jfm.2017.383arXiv 1610.02388
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

• Numerical study of an inextensible, finite swimmer in Stokesian viscoelastic flow

  2016influential reference
• Computational Challenges for Simulating Strongly Elastic Flows in Biology

  2015cited by this paper
• The effect of gait on swimming in viscoelastic fluids

  2015cited by this paper
• Complex fluids affect low-Reynolds number locomotion in a kinematic-dependent manner

  2015cited by this paper
• Flagellar Kinematics and Swimming of Algal Cells in Viscoelastic Fluids

  2015cited by this paper
• Undulatory swimming in non-Newtonian fluids

  2015cited by this paper
• Small-amplitude swimmers can self-propel faster in viscoelastic fluids.

  2015cited by this paper
• Locomotion Through Complex Fluids: An Experimental View

  2015cited by this paper
• Experimental investigation on interactions among fluid and rod-like particles in a turbulent pipe jet by means of particle image velocimetry

  2014cited by this paper
• Mechanisms of elastic enhancement and hindrance for finite-length undulatory swimmers in viscoelastic fluids.

  2014cited by this paper
• Theory of Locomotion Through Complex Fluids

  2014cited by this paper
• Effect of solid boundaries on swimming dynamics of microorganisms in a viscoelastic fluid

  2014cited by this paper
• Enhanced active swimming in viscoelastic fluids

  2014influential reference
• Undulatory swimming in shear-thinning fluids: experiments with Caenorhabditis elegans

  2014cited by this paper
• Physics of rheologically enhanced propulsion: Different strokes in generalized Stokes

  2013cited by this paper
• Fluid elasticity increases the locomotion of flexible swimmers

  2013influential reference
• Speed of a swimming sheet in Newtonian and viscoelastic fluids.

  2013cited by this paper
• Three-sphere swimmer in a nonlinear viscoelastic medium.

  2013cited by this paper
• Locomotion of helical bodies in viscoelastic fluids: enhanced swimming at large helical amplitudes.

  2013cited by this paper
• Fluid elasticity can enable propulsion at low Reynolds number

  2012cited by this paper
• Self-propulsion in viscoelastic fluids: Pushers vs. pullers

  2012cited by this paper
• Force-free swimming of a model helical flagellum in viscoelastic fluids

  2011cited by this paper
• Undulatory swimming in viscoelastic fluids.

  2011cited by this paper
• Viscoelastic fluid response can increase the speed and efficiency of a free swimmer.

  2010influential reference
• Microelastohydrodynamics of Swimming Organisms Near Solid Boundaries in Complex Fluids

  2010cited by this paper
• Swimming speeds of filaments in nonlinearly viscoelastic fluids.

  2009cited by this paper
• The hydrodynamics of swimming microorganisms

  2008influential reference
• Beating patterns of filaments in viscoelastic fluids.

  2008influential reference
• Theory of swimming filaments in viscoelastic media.

  2007cited by this paper
• Propulsion in a viscoelastic fluid

  2007influential reference
• Floppy swimming: viscous locomotion of actuated elastica.

  2006cited by this paper
• The Method of Regularized Stokeslets

  2001cited by this paper
• Physical Aspects of Axonemal Beating and Swimming

  2000cited by this paper
• The Stokesian hydrodynamics of flexing, stretching filaments

  2000cited by this paper
• Generic aspects of axonemal beating

  2000cited by this paper
• Swimming of spermatozoa in a linear viscoelastic fluid

  1998cited by this paper
• FLEXIVE AND PROPULSIVE DYNAMICS OF ELASTICA AT LOW REYNOLDS NUMBER

  1997cited by this paper
• Nonlinear dynamics of stiff polymers.

  1995cited by this paper
• Effect of artificial stress diffusivity on the stability of numerical calculations and the flow dynamics of time-dependent viscoelastic flows

  1995cited by this paper
• K.: Replicator dynamics

  1994cited by this paper
• A computational model of aquatic animal locomotion

  1988cited by this paper
• Motion induced by a waving plate

  1981cited by this paper
• On swimming in a visco-elastic liquid

  1979cited by this paper

• A computational approach to simulating a three-sphere swimmer in a viscoelastic fluid modelled via the Giesekus constitutive law

  2025cites this paper
• Hydrodynamic clustering of two finite-length flagellated swimmers in viscoelastic fluids

  2023cites this paper
• Flagellum pumping efficiency in shear-thinning viscoelastic fluids

  2023cites this paper
• Challenges and attempts to make intelligent microswimmers

  2023cites this paper
• Effect of fluid elasticity on the emergence of oscillations in an active elastic filament

  2023influential citation
• Well-posedness and applications of classical elastohydrodynamics for a swimming filament

  2022cites this paper
• Well-Posedness of a Viscoelastic Resistive Force Theory and Applications to Swimming

  2022influential citation
• Performance of a Helical Microswimmer Traversing a Discrete Viscoelastic Network with Dynamic Remodeling

  2022cites this paper
• Propulsion of an elastic filament in a shear-thinning fluid.

  2021cites this paper
• Squirmers with swirl at low Weissenberg number

  2021cites this paper
• An active body in a Phan-Thien and Tanner fluid: The effect of the third polar squirming mode

  2021cites this paper
• Modelling Motility: The Mathematics of Spermatozoa

  2021cites this paper
• A mathematician’s perspective on the Oldroyd B model: Progress and future challenges

  2021cites this paper
• Microswimming in viscoelastic fluids

  2021cites this paper
• Low Reynolds Number Swimming with Slip Boundary Conditions

  2020cites this paper
• Actuating a curved elastic filament for bidirectional propulsion

  2020cites this paper
• Swimming with swirl in a viscoelastic fluid

  2020cites this paper
• Medical micro/nanorobots in complex media.

  2020cites this paper
• Polymer stress growth in viscoelastic fluids in oscillating extensional flows with applications to micro-organism locomotion

  2019cites this paper
• Dynamics of Flexible Fibers in Viscous Flows and Fluids

  2019cites this paper
• Three-dimensional simulations of undulatory and amoeboid swimmers in viscoelastic fluids.

  2019cites this paper
• Convergent solutions of Stokes Oldroyd-B boundary value problems using the Immersed Boundary Smooth Extension (IBSE) method

  2019cites this paper
• Flow around a squirmer in a shear-thinning fluid

  2018cites this paper
• Advances in colloidal manipulation and transport via hydrodynamic interactions.

  2018cites this paper
• Orientation dependent elastic stress concentration at tips of slender objects translating in viscoelastic fluids

  2018cites this paper
• Flagellar swimming in viscoelastic fluids: role of fluid elastic stress revealed by simulations based on experimental data

  2017cites this paper
• Smith ScholarWorks Smith ScholarWorks

  year unknowncites this paper