The impact of azimuthal flow on swimming dynamics in elastic fluids
Streamlines around our model of a swimming microorganism. This type of flow would be created for example by a swimming bacteria that moves via a rotating tail/body, such as E. coli.Microorganisms must often navigate through biological fluids (e.g. biofilms) that are viscoelastic, meaning they behave both as a liquid and a solid. In this pair of papers, we use computational fluid dynamics and theoretical analysis to explain why swimmers that create swirling flow like E. coli will swim faster in elastic fluids.
Publications
