Numerical study on bacterial flagellar bundling and tumbling in a viscous fluid using an immersed boundary method

Abstract

The bundling and tumbling behavior of bacterial flagella in a viscous fluid has got immense significance in the field of biological fluid dynamics. In this paper we investigate the hydrodynamic interaction among two and more than two flagella in a viscous fluid based on an immersed boundary method. We model each helical flagellum by a number of triangular cross-sections with three immersed boundary (IB) points on each cross-section. Three types of elastic links are generated from each IB point to create an elastic network model of the flagellum and the first cross-section is modeled as the flagellar motor. The elastic forces are computed based on the elastic energy approach and the motor forces are obtained from the applied angular frequency of rotation of the motor. The Stokes equations governing the flow are solved on a staggered Cartesian grid system using a fractional-step based finite-volume method. It is observed that when two left-handed helical flagella rotate in the counter-clockwise direction, the resulting hydrodynamic interaction leads to bundling. When one of the flagella reverses the direction of rotation to clockwise the hydrodynamic interaction results in tumbling. During the bundling, the flagella wrap and intertwine each other, whereas during the tumbling they separate in an erratic way. There exists an exact combination of the handedness and rotational direction of the flagella to achieve the bundling. The bundling-to-tumbling behavior of the flagella is studied and it is concluded that the tumbling occurs faster than the bundling. Further, the hydrodynamic interaction among three flagella in a viscous fluid is studied for the cases of rotation in the same direction and in different directions. The bundling and tumbling behavior is well captured even for the case of multiple (more than two) flagella using the developed model.