A numerical study on swimming micro-organisms inside a capillary tube

ORAL

Abstract

The locomotivity of micro-organisms is highly dependent on the surrounding environments such as walls, free surface and neighbouring cells. In our current work, we perform simulations of swimming micro-organisms inside a capillary tube based on boundary element method. We focus on the swimming speed, power consumption and locomotive trajectory of swimming cells for different levels of confinement. For a cell propelling itself by tangential surface deformation, we show that it will swim along a helical trajectory with a specified swimming gait. Such a helical trajectory was observed before by experiments on swimming \textit{Paramecium} inside a capillary tube.

*Funding by VR (the Swedish Research Council) and the National Science Foundation (grant CBET-0746285 to E.L.) is gratefully acknowledged. Computer time provided by SNIC (Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing) is also acknowledged.

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Authors

  • Lailai Zhu

    • Linne Flow Centre, KTH Mechanics

  • E. Lauga

    • UCSD
    • University of California San Diego
    • University of California, San Diego
    • Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Enginering, University of California San Diego
    • Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of California San Diego
    • UCSD-MAE
    • University of California - San Diego

  • Luca Brandt

    • KTH Mechanics, Stockholm, Sweden
    • KTH Royal Institute of Technology
    • Linne Flow Centre, KTH Mechanics