Research

Swimming of microorganisms in quasi 2D membranes
Proteins and microorganisms can often be found maneuvering within quasi-2D membranes, which are membranes surrounded by a bulk fluid of a different viscosity.

Biological swimmers frequently navigate in geometrically restricted media. We studied the prescribed-stroke problem of swimmers confined to a planar viscous membrane embedded in a bulk fluid of different viscosity. In their motion, microscopic swimmers disturb the fluid in both the membrane and the bulk. The flows that emerge have a combination of two dimensional (2-D) and three-dimensional (3-D) hydrodynamic features, and such flows are referred to as quasi-two dimensional. The cross-over from 2-D to 3-D hydrodynamics in a quasi-2-D fluid is controlled by the Saffman length, a length scale given by the ratio of the 2-D membrane viscosity to the 3-D viscosity of the embedding bulk fluid. We have developed a computational and theoretical approach based on the boundary element method and the Lorentz reciprocal theorem to study the swimming of microorganisms for a range of values of the Saffman length. We found that a flagellum propagating transverse sinusoidal waves in a quasi 2-D membrane can develop a swimming speed exceeding that in pure 2-D or 3-D fluids, while the propulsion of a 2-D squirmer is slowed down by the presence of the bulk fluid. To find out more, please see our work published in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics.
References
(2021). Swimming of microorganisms in quasi-two-dimensional membranes. Journal of Fluid Mechanics.

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