Modeling the dynamics of an elastic rod with intrinsic curvature and twist using a regularized Stokes formulation

Abstract

We develop a Lagrangian numerical algorithm for an elastic rod immersed in a viscous, incompressible fluid at zero Reynolds number. The elasticity of the rod is described by a version of the Kirchhoff rod model, where intrinsic curvature and twist are prescribed, and the fluid is governed by the Stokes equations in R3. The elastic rod is represented by a space curve corresponding to the centerline of the rod and an orthonormal triad, which encodes the bend and twist of the rod. In this method, the differences between the rod configuration and its intrinsic shape generate force and torque along the centerline. The coupling to the fluid is accomplished by the use of the method of regularized Stokeslets for the force and regularized rotlets for the torque. This technique smooths out the singularity in the fundamental solutions of the Stokes equations for the computation of the velocity of the rod centerline. In addition, the computation of the angular velocity of the rod requires the use of regularized (potential) dipoles. As a benchmark problem, we consider open and closed rods with intrinsic curvature and twist in a viscous fluid. Equilibrium configurations and dynamic instabilities are compared with known results in elastic rod theory. For cases when the exact solution is unknown, the numerical results are compared to those produced by the generalized immersed boundary (gIB) method, where the fluid is governed by the Navier–Stokes equations with small Reynolds number on a finite (periodic) domain. It is shown that the regularization method combined with Kirchhoff rod theory contributes substantially to the reduction of computation time and efficient memory usage in comparison to the gIB method. We also illustrate how the regularized method can be used to model microorganism motility where the organism is propelled by a flagellum propagating sinusoidal waves. The swimming speeds of this flagellum using the regularized Stokes formulation are matched well with classical asymptotic results of Taylor’s infinite cylinder in terms of frequency and amplitude of the undulation.