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research article

Swimming by reciprocal motion at low Reynolds number

Qiu, Tian
•
Lee, Tung-Chun
•
Mark, Andrew G.
Show more
2014
Nature Communications

Biological microorganisms swim with flagella and cilia that execute nonreciprocal motions for low Reynolds number (Re) propulsion in viscous fluids. This symmetry requirement is a consequence of Purcell's scallop theorem, which complicates the actuation scheme needed by microswimmers. However, most biomedically important fluids are non-Newtonian where the scallop theorem no longer holds. It should therefore be possible to realize a microswimmer that moves with reciprocal periodic body-shape changes in non-Newtonian fluids. Here we report a symmetric 'micro-scallop', a single-hinge microswimmer that can propel in shear thickening and shear thinning (non-Newtonian) fluids by reciprocal motion at low Re. Excellent agreement between our measurements and both numerical and analytical theoretical predictions indicates that the net propulsion is caused by modulation of the fluid viscosity upon varying the shear rate. This reciprocal swimming mechanism opens new possibilities in designing biomedical microdevices that can propel by a simple actuation scheme in non-Newtonian biological fluids.

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Type
research article
DOI
10.1038/ncomms6119
Web of Science ID

WOS:000345621800001

Author(s)
Qiu, Tian
Lee, Tung-Chun
Mark, Andrew G.
Morozov, Konstantin I.
Muenster, Raphael
Mierka, Otto
Turek, Stefan
Leshansky, Alexander M.
Fischer, Peer
Date Issued

2014

Publisher

Nature Publishing Group

Published in
Nature Communications
Volume

5

Article Number

5119

Editorial or Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

EPFL units
SV  
Available on Infoscience
December 30, 2014
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/109720
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