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1. Q -tensor model for undulatory swimming in lyotropic liquid crystal polymers

   https://doi.org/10.1017/jfm.2021.531  

   Lin, Zhaowu; Chen, Sheng; Gao, Tong (August 2021, Journal of Fluid Mechanics)

   null (Ed.)

   Microorganisms may exhibit rich swimming behaviours in anisotropic fluids, such as liquid crystals, which have direction-dependent physical and rheological properties. Here we construct a two-dimensional computation model to study the undulatory swimming mechanisms of microswimmers in a solution of rigid, rodlike liquid crystal polymers. We describe the fluid phase using Doi's $$Q$$ -tensor model, and treat the swimmer as a finite-length flexible fibre with imposed propagating travelling waves on the body curvature. The fluid–structure interactions are resolved via an immersed boundary method. Compared with the swimming dynamics in Newtonian fluids, we observe non-Newtonian behaviours that feature both enhanced and retarded swimming motions in lyotropic liquid crystal polymers. We reveal the propulsion mechanism by analysing the near-body flow fields and polymeric force distributions, together with asymptotic analysis for an idealized model of Taylor's swimming sheet. 

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2. Directional self-locomotion of active droplets enabled by nematic environment

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-020-01055-5  

   Rajabi, Mojtaba; Baza, Hend; Turiv, Taras; Lavrentovich, Oleg D. (October 2020, Nature Physics)

   null (Ed.)

   Active matter composed of self-propelled interacting units holds a major promise for the extraction of useful work from its seemingly chaotic dynamics. Streamlining active matter is especially important at the microscale, where the viscous forces prevail over inertia and transport requires a non-reciprocal motion. Here we report that microscopic active droplets representing aqueous dispersions of swimming bacteria Bacillus subtilis become unidirectionally motile when placed in an inactive nematic liquid-crystal medium. Random motion of bacteria inside the droplet is rectified into a directional self-locomotion of the droplet by the polar director structure that the droplet creates in the surrounding nematic through anisotropic molecular interactions at its surface. Droplets without active swimmers show no net displacement. The trajectory of the active droplet can be predesigned by patterning the molecular orientation of the nematic. The effect demonstrates that broken spatial symmetry of the medium can be the reason for and the means to control directional microscale transport. 

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3. Enhanced clamshell swimming with asymmetric beating at low Reynolds number

   https://doi.org/10.1039/d2sm00292b  

   Hu, Shiyuan; Zhang, Jun; Shelley, Michael J. (May 2022, Soft Matter)

   A single flexible filament can be actuated to escape from the scallop theorem and generate net propulsion at low Reynolds number. In this work, we study the dynamics of a simple boundary-driven multi-filament swimmer, a two-arm clamshell actuated at the hinged point, using a nonlocal slender body approximation with hydrodynamic interactions. We first consider an elastic clamshell consisted of flexible filaments with intrinsic curvature, and then build segmental models consisted of rigid segments connected by different mechanical joints with different forms of response torques. The simplicity of the system allows us to fully explore the effect of various parameters on the swimming performance. Optimal included angles and elastoviscous numbers are identified. The segmental models capture the characteristic dynamics of the elastic clamshell. We further demonstrate how the swimming performance can be significantly enhanced by the asymmetric beating patterns induced by biased torques. 

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4. Fish-inspired segment models for undulatory steady swimming

   https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-3190/ac6bd6  

   Akanyeti, Otar; Di Santo, Valentina; Goerig, Elsa; Wainwright, Dylan K.; Liao, James C.; Castro-Santos, Theodore; Lauder, George V. (May 2022, Bioinspiration & Biomimetics)

   Abstract Many aquatic animals swim by undulatory body movements and understanding the diversity of these movements could unlock the potential for designing better underwater robots. Here, we analyzed the steady swimming kinematics of a diverse group of fish species to investigate whether their undulatory movements can be represented using a series of interconnected multi-segment models, and if so, to identify the key factors driving the segment configuration of the models. Our results show that the steady swimming kinematics of fishes can be described successfully using parsimonious models, 83% of which had fewer than five segments. In these models, the anterior segments were significantly longer than the posterior segments, and there was a direct link between segment configuration and swimming kinematics, body shape, and Reynolds number. The models representing eel-like fishes with elongated bodies and fishes swimming at high Reynolds numbers had more segments and less segment length variability along the body than the models representing other fishes. These fishes recruited their anterior bodies to a greater extent, initiating the undulatory wave more anteriorly. Two shape parameters, related to axial and overall body thickness, predicted segment configuration with moderate to high success rate. We found that head morphology was a good predictor of its segment length. While there was a large variation in head segments, the length of tail segments was similar across all models. Given that fishes exhibited variable caudal fin shapes, the consistency of tail segments could be a result of an evolutionary constraint tuned for high propulsive efficiency. The bio-inspired multi-segment models presented in this study highlight the key bending points along the body and can be used to decide on the placement of actuators in fish-inspired robots, to model hydrodynamic forces in theoretical and computational studies, or for predicting muscle activation patterns during swimming. 

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5. Swimming sheet in a density-stratified fluid

   https://doi.org/10.1017/jfm.2019.445  

   Dandekar, Rajat; Shaik, Vaseem A.; Ardekani, Arezoo M. (September 2019, Journal of Fluid Mechanics)

   In this work, we theoretically investigate the swimming velocity of a Taylor swimming sheet immersed in a linearly density-stratified fluid. We use a regular perturbation expansion approach to estimate the swimming velocity up to second order in wave amplitude. We divide our analysis into two regimes of low ( $$\ll O(1)$$ ) and finite Reynolds numbers. We use our solution to understand the effect of stratification on the swimming behaviour of organisms. We find that stratification significantly influences motility characteristics of the swimmer such as the swimming speed, hydrodynamic power expenditure, swimming efficiency and the induced mixing, quantified by mixing efficiency and diapycnal eddy diffusivity. We explore this dependence in detail for both low and finite Reynolds number and elucidate the fundamental insights obtained. We expect our work to shed some light on the importance of stratification in the locomotion of organisms living in density-stratified aquatic environments. 

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