Issue 8, 2010
From the journal:

Soft Matter

Stokesian jellyfish: viscous locomotion of bilayer vesicles

Arthur A. Evans,*a   Saverio E. Spagnolieb  and  Eric Laugab  

* Corresponding authors

a Department of Physics, University of California San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA
E-mail: aevans@physics.ucsd.edu

b Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of California San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA
E-mail: elauga@ucsd.edu

Abstract

Motivated by recent advances in vesicle engineering, we consider theoretically the locomotion of shape-changing bilayer vesicles at low Reynolds number. By modulating their volume and membrane composition, the vesicles can be made to change shape quasi-statically in thermal equilibrium. When the control parameters are tuned appropriately to yield periodic shape changes, which are not time-reversible, the result is a net swimming motion over one cycle of shape deformation. For two classical vesicle models (spontaneous curvature and bilayer coupling), we numerically determine the sequence of vesicle shapes through an enthalpy minimization, as well as the fluid-body interactions by solving a boundary integral formulation of the Stokes equations. For both models, net locomotion can be obtained either by continuously modulating fore-aft asymmetric vesicle shapes or by crossing a continuous shape-transition region and alternating between fore-aft asymmetric and fore-aft symmetric shapes. The obtained hydrodynamic efficiencies are similar to those of other low Reynolds number biological swimmers and suggest that shape-changing vesicles might provide an alternative to flagella-based synthetic microswimmers.

Graphical abstract: Stokesian jellyfish: viscous locomotion of bilayer vesicles

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Article information

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1039/B924548K
Article type
Paper
Submitted
23 Nov 2009
Accepted
05 Feb 2010
First published
09 Mar 2010

Soft Matter, 2010,6, 1737-1747

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Stokesian jellyfish: viscous locomotion of bilayer vesicles

A. A. Evans, S. E. Spagnolie and E. Lauga, Soft Matter, 2010, 6, 1737 DOI: 10.1039/B924548K

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