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Squirming through shear-thinning fluids

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 November 2015

Charu Datt ,
Lailai Zhu ,
Gwynn J. Elfring  and
On Shun Pak
Charu Datt
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4, Canada
Lailai Zhu
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Fluid Mechanics and Instabilities, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, CH-1015, Switzerland
Gwynn J. Elfring*
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4, Canada
On Shun Pak*
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA 95053, USA
*
†Email addresses for correspondence: gelfring@mech.ubc.ca, opak@scu.edu
†Email addresses for correspondence: gelfring@mech.ubc.ca, opak@scu.edu
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Abstract

Many micro-organisms find themselves immersed in fluids displaying non-Newtonian rheological properties such as viscoelasticity and shear-thinning viscosity. The effects of viscoelasticity on swimming at low Reynolds numbers have already received considerable attention, but much less is known about swimming in shear-thinning fluids. A general understanding of the fundamental question of how shear-thinning rheology influences swimming still remains elusive. To probe this question further, we study a spherical squirmer in a shear-thinning fluid using a combination of asymptotic analysis and numerical simulations. Shear-thinning rheology is found to affect a squirming swimmer in non-trivial and surprising ways; we predict and show instances of both faster and slower swimming depending on the surface actuation of the squirmer. We also illustrate that while a drag and thrust decomposition can provide insights into swimming in Newtonian fluids, extending this intuition to problems in complex media can prove problematic.

JFM classification

Biological Fluid Dynamics: Biological Fluid Dynamics Complex Fluids: Complex Fluids Biological Fluid Dynamics: Micro-organism dynamics
Type
Rapids
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 784 , 10 December 2015 , R1
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Copyright
© 2015 Cambridge University Press 

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