Renormalization of Mechanical Properties in Fluctuating Active Membranes
Abstract We develop a theoretical framework to quantify how active forces renormalize the effective bending rigidity, Gaussian modulus, and surface tension of thermally fluctuating membranes. Building on classical statistical mechanics, we extend the analysis to include nonequilibrium active forces—both direct forces and those coupled to membrane curvature—within a nonlinear continuum formulation. Our model also incorporates hydrodynamic interactions mediated by the surrounding viscous fluid, which significantly alter the fluctuation spectrum. We find that direct active forces enhance long-wavelength undulations, leading to a substantial reduction in both the effective bending rigidity and surface tension, with the extent of softening strongly modulated by fluid viscosity. In contrast, curvature-coupled active forces primarily influence intermediate and short-wavelength fluctuations and show minimal sensitivity to viscosity. Together, these findings provide key insights into the nonequilibrium mechanics of active membranes and yield testable predictions for interpreting fluctuation spectra in both biological contexts and engineered membrane systems.
61
- 10.1103/physreve.76.051910
- Nov 12, 2007
- Physical Review E
118
- 10.1529/biophysj.104.045609
- Dec 1, 2004
- Biophysical Journal
6
- 10.1016/j.jmps.2023.105523
- Dec 13, 2023
- Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids
177
- 10.1103/physrevlett.90.228101
- Jun 4, 2003
- Physical Review Letters
652
- 10.1038/nphys3224
- Feb 1, 2015
- Nature Physics
224
- 10.1051/jphys:01986004702032100
- Jan 1, 1986
- Journal de Physique
13
- 10.1016/j.jmps.2023.105240
- Feb 8, 2023
- Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids
46
- 10.1073/pnas.1220968110
- Dec 31, 2012
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
286
- 10.1016/j.chemphyslip.2014.05.001
- May 13, 2014
- Chemistry and Physics of Lipids
173
- 10.1080/00268949108035656
- Jul 1, 1991
- Molecular Crystals and Liquid Crystals
- Research Article
4
- 10.1016/s1001-6058(06)60049-8
- Jul 1, 2006
- Journal of Hydrodynamics, Ser. B
Gravity waves with effect of surface tension and fluid viscosity
- Research Article
49
- 10.1016/j.ultsonch.2021.105735
- Aug 31, 2021
- Ultrasonics Sonochemistry
Effects of surface tension on the dynamics of a single micro bubble near a rigid wall in an ultrasonic field
- Research Article
2
- 10.7498/aps.66.234702
- Jan 1, 2017
- Acta Physica Sinica
Boundary integral simulation has been conducted to study the motion and deformation of bubbles with weak viscous and surface tension effects in fluid. Both normal and tangential stress boundary conditions are satisfied and the weak viscous effects are confined to the thin boundary layers around bubble surfaces, which is also known as boundary layer theory of bubble. By using this method, the influence of viscosity and surface tension of fluid on the motion of bubbles has been studied. Both axisymmetric and three-dimensional numerical results are compared with analytical results of Rayleigh-Plesset equation. Good agreement between them is achieved, which validates the numerical model. On this basis, interaction model between two vertically placed bubbles is established, by taking the surface tension, gravity, and viscous effects into consideration. Variations of physical quantities including bubble deformation, jet velocity, and energy of fluid are studied. Last but not least, the influence of viscosity and surface tension on the motion of a spherical bubble is investigated. It is found that viscous effects of fluid depress the pulsation of bubble and part of fluid energy is transformed into viscous dissipation energy. As a result, the development of bubble jet, the radius of the bubble, and the jet velocity are reduced gradually. On the other hand, the surface tension of fluid does not change the range of the bubble pulsation but reduces the period of the bubble pulsation and enhances the potential energy of the bubble. This model and numerical results aim to provide some references for bubble dynamics in bioengineering, chemical engineering, naval architecture, and ocean engineering, etc.
- Research Article
8
- 10.1016/j.euromechflu.2005.03.002
- May 17, 2005
- European Journal of Mechanics - B/Fluids
Instability analysis of nonlinear surface waves in a circular cylindrical container subjected to a vertical excitation
- Research Article
3
- 10.1016/j.dib.2021.107396
- Sep 24, 2021
- Data in Brief
Dataset of flow experiment: Effects of density, viscosity and surface tension on flow regimes and pressure drop of two-phase flow in horizontal pipes
- Research Article
31
- 10.1590/s1413-35552012005000020
- Aug 1, 2012
- Brazilian Journal of Physical Therapy
The reduction of the pelvic floor muscles (PFM) strength is a major cause of stress urinary incontinence (SUI). To compare active and passive forces, and vaginal cavity aperture in continent and stress urinary incontinent women. The study included a total of thirty-two women, sixteen continent women (group 1--G1) and sixteen women with SUI (group 2--G2). To evaluate PFM passive and active forces in anteroposterior (sagittal plane) and left-right directions (frontal plane) a stainless steel specular dynamometer was used. The anteroposterior active strength for the continent women (mean±standard deviation) (0.3±0.2 N) was greater compared to the values found in the evaluation of incontinent women (0.1±0.1 N). The left-right active strength (G1=0.43±0.1 N; G2=0.40±0.1 N), the passive force (G1=1.1±0.2 N; G2=1.1±0.3 N) and the vaginal cavity aperture (G1=21±3 mm; G2=24±4 mm) did not differ between groups 1 and 2. The function evaluation of PFM showed that women with SUI had a lower anteroposterior active strength compared to continent women.
- Research Article
2
- 10.1063/5.0232538
- Nov 8, 2024
- The Journal of chemical physics
We investigate a ring polymer under the influence of chiral active Brownian forces in two dimensions using coarse-grained computer simulations. We observe a non-monotonic behavior of the radius of gyration of an active Brownian ring as a function of active force. However, the shrinkage of the ring in the intermediate strength of active forces becomes more pronounced in the presence of chiral active forces, and the shrinkage is monotonic at a given activity level as a function of the angular frequency controlling the direction of the active force. The distribution of radius of gyration, inter-monomer distance, and radial distribution suggest that the monomers come close to each other, eventually leading to the shrinkage of the ring. Moreover, the bond-correlation suggests that the chirality introduces a local folding of the monomers. Furthermore, using the diameter correlation function, we show that the ring performs tank-treading motion with a frequency following power-law relation with active force with exponent 3/2. The mean squared displacement of the monomers further assists the tank-treading dynamics by exhibiting oscillatory behavior.
- Conference Article
3
- 10.1117/12.2044666
- Apr 1, 2014
Buckling of axially loaded beam-columns represents a critical design constraint for light-weight structures. Besides passive solutions to increase the critical buckling load, active buckling control provides a possibility to stabilize slender elements in structures. So far, buckling control by active forces or bending moments has been mostly investigated for beam-columns with rectangular cross-section and with a preferred direction of buckling. The proposed approach investigates active buckling control of a beam-column with circular solid cross-section which is fixed at its base and pinned at its upper end. Three controlled active lateral forces are applied near the fixed base with angles of 120° to each other to stabilize the beam-column and allow higher critical axial loads. The beam-column is subject to supercritical static axial loads and lateral disturbance forces with varying directions and offsets. Two independent modal state space systems are derived for the bending planes in the lateral y- and z-directions of the circular cross-section. These are used to design two linear-quadratic regulators (LQR) that determine the necessary control forces which are transformed into the directions of the active lateral forces. The system behavior is simulated with a finite element model using one-dimensional beam elements with six degrees of freedom at each node. With the implemented control, it is possible to actively stabilize a beam-column with circular cross-section in arbitrary buckling direction for axial loads significantly above the critical axial buckling load.
- Research Article
12
- 10.1007/s12217-017-9570-9
- Dec 15, 2017
- Microgravity Science and Technology
A volume of fluid (VOF) method is adopted to simulate the condensation of R134a in a horizontal single square minichannel with 1 mm side length. The effect of gravity, surface tension and gas-liquid interfacial shear stress are taken into account. The result denotes that condensation is first appeared at the corner of channel, and then the condensation is stretched at the effect of surface tension until the whole channel boundary covered. The effect of gravity on the distribution of the liquid film depends on the channel length. In short channel, the gravity shows no significant effect, the distribution shape of steam in the cross section of the channel is approximately circular. In long channel, due to the influence of gravity, the liquid converges at the bottom under the effect of gravity, and the thickness of the liquid film at the bottom is obviously higher than that of the upper part of the channel. The effect of surface tension on condensation is also analysed. The surface tension can enhance the condensation heat transfer significantly when the inlet mass flux is low. Whilst, at high mass flux, the enhancement of surface tension on heat transfer is unobvious and can be neglected.
- Research Article
2
- 10.1007/s10035-023-01326-x
- May 1, 2023
- Granular Matter
This work introduces a scaling analysis of sub-aerial axisymmetric column collapses of glass beads and Newtonian glycerol-water solutions mimicking some of the behaviours of debris flows. The beads were in a size range where their inertia partly decouples their collapse behaviour from the water column. Experiments explored a range of viscous, surface tension and particle inertia effects through systematic variation of particle size and fluid viscosity. Crucially a geotechnical centrifuge was used to access elevated effective gravitational accelerations driving the collapse, allowing field-scale viscous and surface tension effects to be replicated. Temporal pore pressure and run out front position evolution data was extracted using a pressure transducer and high speed imaging, respectively. A least-squares fitted scale analysis demonstrated that all characteristic dimensionless quantities of the acceleration phase could be described as a function of the column-scale Bond number text{ Bo }, the Capillary number text{ Ca }, the system size r^*, and the grain-fluid density ratio rho ^*. This analysis demonstrated that collapses as characterised by pore pressure evolution and front positions were controlled by the ratio of text{ Bo}/text{Ca}. This indicates that grain-scale surface tension effects are negligible in such inertial column collapses where they may dominate laboratory-scale granular-fluid flow behaviour where geometric similarity between grain and system size is preserved.Graphical abstract
- Research Article
- 10.2495/bt010151
- Mar 7, 2001
A boundary integral technique is developed for steady two-dimensional, irrotational, incompressible fluid flow with a free surface in a two-dimensional channel. The effects of surface tension and surface friction on the free surface profile are investigated. The numerical solutions indicate that the surface tension tends to increase the curvature of the free surface whilst the surface friction tends to smoothen out the free surface profile and it dampens the effect of the surface tension.
- Research Article
6
- 10.1016/j.physd.2021.132950
- May 25, 2021
- Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena
Effects of head loss, surface tension, viscosity and density ratio on the Kelvin–Helmholtz instability in different types of pipelines
- Research Article
30
- 10.1039/c8nr04539a
- Jan 1, 2018
- Nanoscale
Analyzing impact dynamics is important for practical applications of superhydrophobic surfaces, because these nonwetting surfaces frequently encounter impacting liquid droplets in real environments. Thus, various studies have been conducted to investigate impact dynamics by examining the correlation between the behaviors of impacting liquid droplets and several determining parameters, such as impacting velocity, surface structure and surface energy. The impacting behaviors of pure water droplets were the main focus in most previous studies; the effect of surface tension, another critical parameter, on impact dynamics has rarely been investigated. In the current work, we have newly studied the effects of liquid surface tension on impact dynamics using an ethanol-water solution as a model liquid system. We systematically varied the liquid's surface tension between 72 and 32 mN m-1 by changing the ethanol concentration from 0 to 20 wt%. This range of composition drastically changed the surface tension while it did not significantly affect other physical properties, such as density and viscosity. For an impact dynamics study, two surfaces, namely ZnO nanowires (NWs) and ZnO/Si hierarchical (HIE) structures, were prepared. As the surface tension decreased, the static water contact angle (CA) decreased on both surfaces. Under dynamic conditions, our analysis using a high-speed camera and a quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) showed that lowering the surface tension causes the transition from the anti-wetting to wetting state. The transition We numbers were obtained on both surfaces for various surface tensions of liquids. Under the same dropping conditions of liquids, the ZnO/Si HIE surface shows higher transition We numbers than the ZnO NW surface, which is due to the higher fraction of air pockets in the hierarchical structure, originating from dual dimensional structures. To understand the mechanism of dynamic transition, we developed a model for ZnO/Si HIE structures based on three determining pressures: anti-wetting, wetting, and effective water hammer pressures. The modeling results explain the experimental observations. The results of our model system are highly useful for understanding the impact dynamic behaviors of various liquids on non-wetting surfaces.
- Research Article
13
- 10.1016/j.jmps.2023.105240
- Feb 8, 2023
- Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids
Fluctuations of active membranes with nonlinear curvature elasticity
- Research Article
27
- 10.1039/c9em00426b
- Jan 1, 2020
- Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts
The physical processes and time scales underlying the evolution of surface tension in atmospheric solution droplets are largely unaccounted for in present models describing cloud droplet formation. Adsorption of surface-active molecules at the surface of a solution droplet depresses the droplet surface tension but also depletes solute from the droplet bulk, which have opposing and sometimes canceling effects in cloud droplet formation. In this work, we study the effect of time-evolving surface tension for cloud droplet activation of particles composed of Nordic Aquatic Fulvic Acid (NAFA) mixed with sodium chloride (NaCl). We model the formation of cloud droplets using Köhler theory with surface tension depression and bulk/surface partitioning evaluated from two different thermodynamic surface models. Continuous ternary parameterizations were constructed from surface tension measurements of macroscopic droplets at different time steps after the formation of a droplet surface. The predicted results are compared to previous measurements of mixed NAFA-NaCl cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) activity and a bulk solution model that does not take the NAFA bulk/surface partitioning equilibrium into account. Whereas the bulk model shows a trend in cloud droplet formation following that of macroscopic surface tension depression with time, the variation with time essentially disappears when bulk/surface partitioning is taken explicitly into account during droplet activation. For all equilibrium time steps considered, the effect of surface tension depression in the NAFA-NaCl system is counteracted by the depletion of solute from the finite-sized droplet bulk phase. Our study highlights that a comprehensive data set is necessary to obtain continuous parameterizations of surface tension and other solution properties required to fully account for the bulk/surface partitioning in growing droplets. To our knowledge, no similar data set currently exists for other aqueous organic systems of atmospheric interest. Additional work is necessary to deconvolve the effects of bulk/surface partitioning in the context of time-evolution on cloud droplet activation and to determine whether the results presented here can be further generalized.
- New
- Research Article
- 10.1115/1.4070318
- Nov 6, 2025
- Journal of Applied Mechanics
- New
- Research Article
- 10.1115/1.4070320
- Nov 6, 2025
- Journal of Applied Mechanics
- New
- Research Article
- 10.1115/1.4070317
- Nov 6, 2025
- Journal of Applied Mechanics
- Research Article
- 10.1115/1.4070025
- Nov 3, 2025
- Journal of Applied Mechanics
- Research Article
- 10.1115/1.4070265
- Oct 28, 2025
- Journal of Applied Mechanics
- Research Article
- 10.1115/1.4070264
- Oct 28, 2025
- Journal of Applied Mechanics
- Research Article
- 10.1115/1.4069773
- Oct 7, 2025
- Journal of Applied Mechanics
- Research Article
- 10.1115/1.4069885
- Oct 7, 2025
- Journal of Applied Mechanics
- Research Article
- 10.1115/1.4070022
- Oct 6, 2025
- Journal of Applied Mechanics
- Research Article
- 10.1115/1.4070020
- Oct 6, 2025
- Journal of Applied Mechanics
- Ask R Discovery
- Chat PDF
AI summaries and top papers from 250M+ research sources.