Transition from turbulent to coherent flows in confined three-dimensional active fluids.
Transport of fluid through a pipe is essential for the operation of macroscale machines and microfluidic devices. Conventional fluids only flow in response to external pressure. We demonstrate that an active isotropic fluid, composed of microtubules and molecular motors, autonomously flows through meter-long three-dimensional channels. We establish control over the magnitude, velocity profile, and direction of the self-organized flows and correlate these to the structure of the extensile microtubule bundles. The inherently three-dimensional transition from bulk-turbulent to confined-coherent flows occurs concomitantly with a transition in the bundle orientational order near the surface and is controlled by a scale-invariant criterion related to the channel profile. The nonequilibrium transition of confined isotropic active fluids can be used to engineer self-organized soft machines.
Department of Physics, Brandeis University, 415 South Street, Waltham, MA 02453, USA.
Kun-Ta
0000-0002-1901-9516
KT
Wu
Department of Physics, Brandeis University, 415 South Street, Waltham, MA 02453, USA.
Jean Bernard
0000-0002-7750-2274
JB
Hishamunda
Department of Physics, Brandeis University, 415 South Street, Waltham, MA 02453, USA.
Daniel T N
DT
Chen
Department of Physics, Brandeis University, 415 South Street, Waltham, MA 02453, USA.
Stephen J
0000-0001-7002-7370
SJ
DeCamp
School of Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology, 837 State Street, Atlanta, GA 30339, USA.
Ya-Wen
0000-0002-5626-7391
YW
Chang
School of Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology, 837 State Street, Atlanta, GA 30339, USA.
Alberto
A
Fernández-Nieves
Department of Physics, Brandeis University, 415 South Street, Waltham, MA 02453, USA. fraden@brandeis.edu zdogic@brandeis.edu.
Seth
0000-0002-2420-9939
S
Fraden
Department of Physics, Brandeis University, 415 South Street, Waltham, MA 02453, USA. fraden@brandeis.edu zdogic@brandeis.edu.
Zvonimir
0000-0003-0142-1838
Z
Dogic