title: Numerical modelling of chirality-induced bi-directional swimming of artificial flagella.
abstract: Biomimetic micro-swimmers can be used for various medical applications, such as targeted drug delivery and micro-object (e.g. biological cells) manipulation, in lab-on-a-chip devices. Bacteria swim using a bundle of flagella (flexible hair-like structures) that form a rotating cork-screw of chiral shape. To mimic bacterial swimming, we employ a computational approach to design a bacterial (chirality-induced) swimmer whose chiral shape and rotational velocity can be controlled by an external magnetic field. In our model, we numerically solve the coupled governing equations that describe the system dynamics (i.e. solid mechanics, fluid dynamics and magnetostatics). We explore the swimming response as a function of the characteristic dimensionless parameters and put special emphasis on controlling the swimming direction. Our results provide fundamental physical insight on the chirality-induced propulsion, and it provides guidelines for the design of magnetic bi-directional micro-swimmers.
authors: Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials , University of Groningen , 9747 AG Groningen, The Netherlands.
authors: S
authors: S
authors: Namdeo
authors: Department of Engineering , University of Cambridge , Cambridge CB2 1PZ, UK.
authors: S N
authors: SN
authors: Khaderi
authors: Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials , University of Groningen , 9747 AG Groningen, The Netherlands.
authors: P R
authors: PR
authors: Onck
keywords: biomimetics; low-Reynolds number motions; magnetic actuation; microswimmer