Department of Mathematics, Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus, London, SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom.
Nano Lett. 2013 Feb 13;13(2):531-7. doi: 10.1021/nl3040477. Epub 2013 Jan 22.
Recent advances in micro- and nanoscale fabrication techniques allow for the construction of rigid, helically shaped microswimmers that can be actuated using applied magnetic fields. These swimmers represent the first steps toward the development of microrobots for targeted drug delivery and minimally invasive surgical procedures. To assess the performance of these devices and improve on their design, we perform shape optimization computations to determine swimmer geometries that maximize speed in the direction of a given applied magnetic torque. We directly assess aspects of swimmer shapes that have been developed in previous experimental studies, including helical propellers with elongated cross sections and attached payloads. From these optimizations, we identify key improvements to existing designs that result in swimming speeds that are 70-470% of their original values.
近年来，微纳加工技术的进步使得制造刚性、螺旋形微游泳者成为可能，这些游泳者可以通过施加磁场来驱动。这些游泳者代表了开发用于靶向药物输送和微创手术的微型机器人的第一步。为了评估这些设备的性能并改进它们的设计，我们进行形状优化计算，以确定在给定的施加磁转矩方向上速度最大化的游泳者几何形状。我们直接评估了以前的实验研究中开发的游泳者形状的各个方面，包括具有细长横截面和附加有效载荷的螺旋桨。通过这些优化，我们确定了对现有设计的关键改进，使游泳速度提高了 70-470%。
