Abstract
Abstract
Highlights
Many organisms live in microfluidic environments, either biological or synthetic, where the fluid inertia is negligible
Of particular interest is the study of active microparticles in lyotropic liquid crystals (LCs) wherein the extra stress generation is determined by the LC’s orientational order, which leads to intriguing swimming behaviours of microswimmers, as well as far-from-equilibrium physical and topological properties of the LCs (Zhou et al 2014; Lavrentovich 2016; Lintuvuori, Würger & Stratford 2017; Daddi-Moussa-Ider & Menzel 2018; Mandal & Mazza 2019)
We numerically investigate the undulatory motions of a finite-length swimmer in liquid crystal polymers (LCPs) whose equilibrium configurations are described by Ψ0, and focus on the scenarios when the swimmer moves either parallel with or perpendicular to the alignment direction (i.e. x-direction) for both the ‘stiff’ (σb = O(10−1)) and ‘soft’ (σb = O(10−3)) cases
Summary
Many organisms live in microfluidic environments, either biological or synthetic, where the fluid inertia is negligible. There have been several models proposed to study the dynamics of microswimmers in lyotropic LCs. Zhou et al (2017) employed a Q-tensor model (here Q-tensor denotes the second-rank orientational order-parameter tensor) derived from the generalized Ericksen–Leslie equation (Sonnet, Maffettone & Virga 2004) to solve for the orientation field of LCs when a rigid, rodlike particle (B. subtilis) moves in a homeotropic nematic cell where the director is perpendicular to the cell wall. Zhou et al (2017) employed a Q-tensor model (here Q-tensor denotes the second-rank orientational order-parameter tensor) derived from the generalized Ericksen–Leslie equation (Sonnet, Maffettone & Virga 2004) to solve for the orientation field of LCs when a rigid, rodlike particle (B. subtilis) moves in a homeotropic nematic cell where the director is perpendicular to the cell wall They illustrated how the induced shear determines the ordering patterns (or birefringent cloud) around the moving particle.
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