Dresden 2017 – scientific programme

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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik

DY 25: Posters - Soft Particles, Microswimmers, Microfluidics

DY 25.15: Poster

Tuesday, March 21, 2017, 18:15–21:00, P3

Particle inertia induced passive swimming in oscillatory flows — •M. Laumann¹, I. Jo², Y. Huang³, E. Kanso³, D. Kienle¹, and W. Zimmermann¹ — ¹Theoretische Physik I, University of Bayreuth, 95440 Bayreuth, Germany — ²Electrical Eng., University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA — ³Aerospace and Mechanical Eng., University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA

Microswimmers are often actuted via active shape deformations. Here we describe a mechanism of passive swimming of soft particles in oscillatory homogenous flows, that is based on an interplay between their inertia and elasticity. This actuation strategy is demonstrated by analyzing a simple Λ shaped model analogous to Purcell’s scallop, but passively deformed in homogeneous oscillatory flows [1]. In addition this actuation strategy is investigated for asymmetric bead-spring models in oscillatory flow by using a established hydrodynamic description of accelerated particles in flows [2]. We determine optimal parameters which maximize passive swimming. We also examine the stability of swimming motions and observe a transition from stable to unstable swimming. These results suggest that one can tune the background flow properties to control the swimmer motion, and thus, they may have profound implications on design and employment of artificial swimmers in oscillatory flows.

[1] I. Jo, Y. Huang, W. Zimmermann, E. Kanso, Phys. Rev. E 94, 063116 (2016); [2] M.R. Maxey, J.J. Riley, Phys. Fluids 26, 883 (1983).