Wall-induced translation of a rotating particle in a shear-thinning fluid

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

11-25-2021

Abstract

Particle-wall interactions have broad biological and technological applications. In particular, some artificial microswimmers capitalize on their translation-rotation coupling near a wall to generate directed propulsion. Emerging biomedical applications of these microswimmers in complex biological fluids prompt questions on the impact of non-Newtonian rheology on their propulsion. In this work, we report some intriguing effects of shear-thinning rheology, a ubiquitous non-Newtonian behaviour of biological fluids, on the translation-rotation coupling of a particle near a wall. One particularly interesting feature revealed here is that the wall-induced translation by rotation can occur in a direction opposite to what might be intuitively expected for an object rolling on a solid substrate. We elucidate the underlying physical mechanism and discuss its implications on the design of micromachines and bacterial motion near walls in complex fluids.

Identifier

85115886585 (Scopus)

Publication Title

Journal of Fluid Mechanics

External Full Text Location

https://doi.org/10.1017/jfm.2021.775

e-ISSN

14697645

ISSN

00221120

Volume

927

Grant

CBET-1931214

Fund Ref

E.L. Wiegand Foundation

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