title: Active ciliated surfaces expel model swimmers.
abstract: Continually moving cilia on the surface of marine organisms provide a natural defense against biofouling. To probe the physical mechanisms underlying this antifouling behavior, we integrate the lattice Boltzmann and immersed boundary methods and undertake the first computational studies of the interactions between actuated, biomimetic cilia and a model swimmer. We find that swimmers are effectively "knocked away" from the ciliated surface through a combination of steric repulsion and locally fluctuating flows. In addition, the net flow generated by the collective motion of the entire ciliary array was important for significantly reducing the times spent by relatively slow swimmers near the surface. The results reveal that active ciliated layers can offer a means to resist a wide range of species with a single surface.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical & Petroleum Engineering, University of Pittsburgh , 1249 Benedum Hall, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15261, United States.
authors.forename: Henry
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Shum
authors.forename: Anurag
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tripathi
authors.forename: Julia M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Yeomans
authors.forename: Anna C
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Balazs
mesh_terms: D059001:Aquatic Organisms / Q000502:physiology; D057219:Biofouling / Q000517:prevention & control*; D002923:Cilia / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000502:physiology; D003198:Computer Simulation; D057446:Hydrodynamics; D013499:Surface Properties; D013550:Swimming