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Viscoelastic Fluid Response Can Increase the Speed and Efficiency of a Free Swimmer

2010; American Physical Society; Volume: 104; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1103/physrevlett.104.038101

1092-0145

Joseph Teran, Lisa Fauci, Michael Shelley,

Lattice Boltzmann Simulation Studies

Microorganisms navigate through complex environments such as biofilms and mucosal tissues and tracts. To understand the effect of a complex medium upon their locomotion, we investigate numerically the effect of fluid viscoelasticity on the dynamics of an undulating swimming sheet. First, we recover recent small-amplitude results for infinite sheets that suggest that viscoelasticity impedes locomotion. We find the opposite result when simulating free swimmers with large tail undulations, with both velocity and mechanical efficiency peaking for Deborah numbers near one. We associate this with regions of highly stressed fluid aft of the undulating tail.