Buckling Instability Causes Inertial Thrust for Spherical Swimmers at All Scales - Archive ouverte HAL Accéder directement au contenu
Article Dans Une Revue Physical Review Letters Année : 2017

Buckling Instability Causes Inertial Thrust for Spherical Swimmers at All Scales

Résumé

Microswimmers, and among them aspirant microrobots, generally have to cope with flows where viscous forces are dominant, characterized by a low Reynolds number (Re). This implies constraints on the possible sequences of body motion, which have to be nonreciprocal. Furthermore, the presence of a strong drag limits the range of resulting velocities. Here, we propose a swimming mechanism which uses the buckling instability triggered by pressure waves to propel a spherical, hollow shell. With a macroscopic experimental model, we show that a net displacement is produced at all Re regimes. An optimal displacement caused by nontrivial history effects is reached at intermediate Re. We show that, due to the fast activation induced by the instability, this regime is reachable by microscopic shells. The rapid dynamics would also allow high-frequency excitation with standard traveling ultrasonic waves. Scale considerations predict a swimming velocity of order 1 cm=s for a remote-controlled microrobot, a suitable value for biological applications such as drug delivery.
Fichier principal
Vignette du fichier
SwimmingByBuckling.pdf (1.02 Mo) Télécharger le fichier
Origine : Fichiers éditeurs autorisés sur une archive ouverte
Loading...

Dates et versions

hal-01653208 , version 1 (01-12-2017)

Identifiants

Citer

Adel Djellouli, Philippe Marmottant, Henda Djeridi, Catherine Quilliet, Gwennou Coupier. Buckling Instability Causes Inertial Thrust for Spherical Swimmers at All Scales. Physical Review Letters, 2017, 119 (22), pp.224501. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevLett.119.224501⟩. ⟨hal-01653208⟩
126 Consultations
168 Téléchargements

Altmetric

Partager

Gmail Facebook X LinkedIn More