Title Information
Title
Dynamics of structures in active suspensions of paramagnetic particles and applications to artificial micro-swimmers
Name: Personal
Name Part
Keaveny, Eric E.
Role
Role Term: Text
creator
Origin Information
Copyright Date (keyDate="yes", encoding="w3cdtf")
2008
Physical Description
Extent
xxi, 170 p.
digitalOrigin
born digital
Note
Thesis (Ph.D.) -- Brown University (2008)
Name: Personal
Name Part
Maxey, Martin
Role
Role Term: Text
director
Name: Personal
Name Part
Karniadakis, George
Role
Role Term: Text
reader
Name: Personal
Name Part
Powers, Thomas
Role
Role Term: Text
reader
Name: Corporate
Name Part
Brown University. Applied Mathematics
Role
Role Term: Text
sponsor
Genre (aat)
theses
Abstract
Micron-size paramagnetic particles suspended in viscous fluid will aggregate to form linear chains when subject to a uniform magnetic field. This process provides a way of changing the rheological properties of a suspension or building structures for microfluidic devices. We present a method to efficiently and accurately quantify the magnetic interactions between these particles. With this model and the force-coupling method, we perform simulations of both small ensembles and suspensions of thousands of paramagnetic particles subject to shear flows or rotating applied magnetic fields and demonstrate that in these situations an accurate representation of the fluid forces is necessary to estimate chain length. The artificial micro-swimmer is a device constructed from a flagellum-like tail of chemically linked paramagnetic beads tethered to a human red blood cell. To simulate this device, we develop an elastic coupling model that treats each chemical link as an inextensible, flexible rod. We demonstrate that when this device is subject to a rotating applied magnetic field, the filament tail will deform into a helical shape rotating with the field and propel the swimmer through the viscous fluid. Using a continuous elastica/resistive force model, we explore further the dependence of the swimming speed on the magnetic forces and swimmer geometry in the low frequency limit. We then examine the interactions between two comoving swimmers and ascertain at what separation distance a far-field approximation of the hydrodynamics is sufficient to reproduce the swimmers' dynamics. We also provide simulations of a single swimmer near a rigid surface and demonstrate that under certain conditions the presence of a wall can enhance the swimming speed. We determine further the height dependence of the repulsion from the surface, and, in the case of the spiral swimmer, the lateral drift speed. Finally, we consider a "squirmer" model for a swimming microorganism, appropriate for ciliary propulsion on time-scales much larger than the period of ciliary beating. We show that the "squirmer" model within the force-coupling method framework provides an effective simulation tool for studying low volume fraction suspensions of microorganisms.
Subject (Local)
Topic
active suspensions
Subject (Local)
Topic
low Reynolds number swimming
Subject (Local)
Topic
self-assembly
Subject (Local)
Topic
multipole methods
Subject (Local)
Topic
paramagnetic beads
Subject (FAST) (authorityURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast", valueURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast/1909834")
Topic
Magnetorheological fluids
Record Information
Record Content Source (marcorg)
RPB
Record Creation Date (encoding="iso8601")
20091218
Language
Language Term: Code (ISO639-2B)
eng
Language Term: Text
English
Identifier: DOI
10.7301/Z0FN14GZ
Access Condition: rights statement (href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/")
In Copyright
Access Condition: restriction on access
Collection is open for research.
Type of Resource (primo)
dissertations