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We develop a linearly scaling variant of the force coupling method [K. Yeo and M. R. Maxey, J. Fluid Mech. 649, 205–231 (2010)] for computing hydrodynamic interactions among particles confined to a doubly periodic geometry with either a single bottom wall or two walls (slit channel) in the aperiodic direction. Our spectrally accurate Stokes solver uses the fast Fourier transform in the periodic xy plane and Chebyshev polynomials in the aperiodic z direction normal to the wall(s). We decompose the problem into two problems. The first is a doubly periodic subproblem in the presence of particles (source terms) with free-space boundary conditions in the z direction, which we solve by borrowing ideas from a recent method for rapid evaluation of electrostatic interactions in doubly periodic geometries [Maxian et al., J. Chem. Phys. 154, 204107 (2021)]. The second is a correction subproblem to impose the boundary conditions on the wall(s). Instead of the traditional Gaussian kernel, we use the exponential of a semicircle kernel to model the source terms (body force) due to the presence of particles and provide optimum values for the kernel parameters that ensure a given hydrodynamic radius with at least two digits of accuracy and rotational and translational invariance. The computation time of our solver, which is implemented in graphical processing units, scales linearly with the number of particles, and allows computations with about a million particles in less than a second for a sedimented layer of colloidal microrollers. We find that in a slit channel, a driven dense suspension of microrollers maintains the same two-layer structure as above a single wall, but moves at a substantially lower collective speed due to increased confinement. 

Semiflexible slender filaments are ubiquitous in nature and cell biology, including in the cytoskeleton, where reorganization of actin filaments allows the cell to move and divide. Most methods for simulating semiflexible inextensible fibers/polymers are based on discrete (bead-link or blob-link) models, which become prohibitively expensive in the slender limit when hydrodynamics is accounted for. In this paper, we develop a novel coarse-grained approach for simulating fluctuating slender filaments with hydrodynamic interactions. Our approach is tailored to relatively stiff fibers whose persistence length is comparable to or larger than their length and is based on three major contributions. First, we discretize the filament centerline using a coarse non-uniform Chebyshev grid, on which we formulate a discrete constrained Gibbs–Boltzmann (GB) equilibrium distribution and overdamped Langevin equation for the evolution of unit-length tangent vectors. Second, we define the hydrodynamic mobility at each point on the filament as an integral of the Rotne–Prager–Yamakawa kernel along the centerline and apply a spectrally accurate “slender-body” quadrature to accurately resolve the hydrodynamics. Third, we propose a novel midpoint temporal integrator, which can correctly capture the Ito drift terms that arise in the overdamped Langevin equation. For two separate examples, we verify that the equilibrium distribution for the Chebyshev grid is a good approximation of the blob-link one and that our temporal integrator for overdamped Langevin dynamics samples the equilibrium GB distribution for sufficiently small time step sizes. We also study the dynamics of relaxation of an initially straight filament and find that as few as 12 Chebyshev nodes provide a good approximation to the dynamics while allowing a time step size two orders of magnitude larger than a resolved blob-link simulation. We conclude by applying our approach to a suspension of cross-linked semiflexible fibers (neglecting hydrodynamic interactions between fibers), where we study how semiflexible fluctuations affect bundling dynamics. We find that semiflexible filaments bundle faster than rigid filaments even when the persistence length is large, but show that semiflexible bending fluctuations only further accelerate agglomeration when the persistence length and fiber length are of the same order. 

Extensive studies of the hydraulics of pipes have focused on limiting cases, such as fully-developed laminar or turbulent flow through long conduits and the accelerating flow through an orifice, for which there exist laws relating pressure drop and flow rate. We carry out experiments on smooth, circular pipes for dimensions and flow rates that interrogate intermediate conditions between the well-studied limits. Organizing this information in terms of dimensionless friction factor, Reynolds number and pipe aspect ratio yields a surface $f_D(Re,\alpha )$ that is shown to match the three laws associated with developed laminar, developed turbulent, and orifice flows. While each law fails outside its applicable range of $(Re,\alpha )$ , we present a hybrid theoretical–empirical model that includes inlet, development and transition effects, and that proves accurate to approximately 10 % over wide ranges of $Re$ and $\alpha$ . We also present simple formulas for the boundaries between the three hydraulic regimes, which intersect at a triple point. Measurements show that sipping through a straw is an everyday example of such intermediate conditions not accounted for by existing laws but described accurately by our model. More generally, our findings provide formulas for predicting frictional resistance for intermediate- $Re$ flows through finite-length pipes. 

Slender fibres are ubiquitous in biology, physics and engineering, with prominent examples including bacterial flagella and cytoskeletal fibres. In this setting, slender body theories (SBTs), which give the resistance on the fibre asymptotically in its slenderness $\epsilon$ , are useful tools for both analysis and computations. However, a difficulty arises when accounting for twist and cross-sectional rotation: because the angular velocity of a filament can vary depending on the order of magnitude of the applied torque, asymptotic theories must give accurate results for rotational dynamics over a range of angular velocities. In this paper, we first survey the challenges in applying existing SBTs, which are based on either singularity or full boundary integral representations, to rotating filaments, showing in particular that they fail to consistently treat rotation–translation coupling in curved filaments. We then provide an alternative approach which approximates the three-dimensional dynamics via a one-dimensional line integral of Rotne–Prager–Yamakawa regularized singularities. While unable to accurately resolve the flow field near the filament, this approach gives a grand mobility with symmetric rotation–translation and translation–rotation coupling, making it applicable to a broad range of angular velocities. To restore fidelity to the three-dimensional filament geometry, we use our regularized singularity model to inform a simple empirical equation which relates the mean force and torque along the filament centreline to the translational and rotational velocity of the cross-section. The single unknown coefficient in the model is estimated numerically from three-dimensional boundary integral calculations on a rotating, curved filament. 

In this paper, we develop a pulsatile compartmental model of the Fontan circulation and use it to explore the effects of a fenestration added to this physiology. A fenestration is a shunt between the systemic and pulmonary veins that is added either at the time of Fontan conversion or at a later time for the treatment of complications. This shunt increases cardiac output and decreases systemic venous pressure. However, these hemodynamic benefits are achieved at the expense of a decrease in the arterial oxygen saturation. The model developed in this paper incorporates fenestration size as a parameter and describes both blood flow and oxygen transport. It is calibrated to clinical data from Fontan patients, and we use it to study the impact of a fenestration on several hemodynamic variables, including systemic oxygen availability, effective oxygen availability, and systemic venous pressure. In certain scenarios corresponding to high-risk Fontan physiology, we demonstrate the existence of a range of fenestration sizes in which the systemic oxygen availability remains relatively constant while the systemic venous pressure decreases.