Small-amplitude swimmers can self-propel faster in viscoelastic fluids
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Publication:739375
DOI10.1016/J.JTBI.2015.06.045zbMATH Open1343.92053arXiv1507.00021OpenAlexW2963189104WikidataQ50884735 ScholiaQ50884735MaRDI QIDQ739375FDOQ739375
Authors: Emily E. Riley, Eric Lauga 
Publication date: 18 August 2016
Published in: Journal of Theoretical Biology (Search for Journal in Brave)
Abstract: Many small organisms self-propel in viscous fluids using travelling wave-like deformation of their bodies or appendages. Examples include small nematodes moving through soil using whole-body undulations or spermatozoa swimming through mucus using flagellar waves. When self-propulsion occurs in a non-Newtonian fluid, one fundamental question is whether locomotion will occur faster or slower than in a Newtonian environment. Here we consider the general problem of swimming using small-amplitude periodic waves in a viscoelastic fluid described by the classical Oldroyd-B constitutive relationship. Using Taylor's swimming sheet model, we show that if all travelling waves move in the same direction, the locomotion speed of the organism is systematically decreased. However, if we allow waves to travel in two opposite directions, we show that this can lead to enhancement of the swimming speed, which is physically interpreted as due to asymmetric viscoelastic damping of waves with different frequencies. A change of the swimming direction is also possible. By analysing in detail the cases of swimming using two or three travelling waves, we demonstrate that swimming can be enhanced in a viscoelastic fluid for all Deborah numbers below a critical value or, for three waves or more, only for a finite, non-zero range of Deborah numbers, in which case a finite amount of elasticity in the fluid is required to increase the swimming speed.
Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1507.00021
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Cited In (20)
- Swimming and pumping by helical waves in viscous and viscoelastic fluids
- Boundary element methods for particles and microswimmers in a linear viscoelastic fluid
- Viscous propulsion in active transversely isotropic media
- Force moments of an active particle in a complex fluid
- Swimming with swirl in a viscoelastic fluid
- Well-posedness of a viscoelastic resistive force theory and applications to swimming
- Bacterial gliding fluid dynamics on a layer of non-Newtonian slime: perturbation and numerical study
- Swimming of an inertial squirmer and squirmer dumbbell through a viscoelastic fluid
- Interaction of gliding motion of bacteria with rheological properties of the slime
- An actuated elastic sheet interacting with passive and active structures in a viscoelastic fluid
- Thrifty swimming with shear-thinning: a note on out-of-plane effects for undulatory locomotion through shear-thinning fluids
- Helical propulsion in shear-thinning fluids
- Enhanced flagellar swimming through a compliant viscoelastic network in Stokes flow
- Analysis of the swimming of microscopic organisms
- On the role of viscoelasticity in mucociliary clearance: a hydrodynamic continuum approach
- Flagellum pumping efficiency in shear-thinning viscoelastic fluids
- A freely suspended robotic swimmer propelled by viscoelastic normal stresses
- Formation of a strong negative wake behind a helical swimmer in a viscoelastic fluid
- Locomotion in complex fluids: integral theorems
- The role of body flexibility in stroke enhancements for finite-length undulatory swimmers in viscoelastic fluids
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