El Hasadi Yousef M F, Crapper Martin
International Centre for Numerical Methods in Engineering (CIMNE) , Edificio C1, Campus Norte, Jordi Girona 1-3, 08034 Barcelona, Spain.
Department of Mechanical and Construction Engineering, Northumbria University , Ellison Place, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8ST, United Kingdom.
Biomicrofluidics. 2016 Dec 15;10(6):064117. doi: 10.1063/1.4971802. eCollection 2016 Nov.
Self-propelled clusters are involved in many technological applications such as in material science and biotechnology, and understanding their interaction with the fluid that surrounds them is of a great importance. We present results of swimming velocity and energy dissipation obtained through Stokesian dynamics simulations of self-propelled clusters. The clusters are of diffusion limited aggregates, consisting of force- and torque-free spherical particles. The number of particles per cluster ranges from 100 to 400, and with two fractal dimensions of 2.1 and 2.4. The clusters are self-propelled by imposing an explicit gait velocity applied in the x, y, and z directions. It is found that the swimming velocity of the cluster and the energy dissipation are strongly dependent on the number of particles in the cluster and its fractal dimension and on the orientation of the imposed explicit gait velocity. It was found that the rotational velocity of the self-propelled clusters decreases as the number of particles within the cluster is increased, in line with experimental observations reported recently in the literature.
自推进簇参与了许多技术应用，如材料科学和生物技术领域，了解它们与周围流体的相互作用非常重要。我们展示了通过自推进簇的斯托克斯动力学模拟获得的游动速度和能量耗散结果。这些簇是扩散受限聚集体，由无外力和无扭矩的球形颗粒组成。每个簇中的颗粒数量在100到400之间，分形维数为2.1和2.4。通过在x、y和z方向施加明确的步态速度来实现簇的自推进。研究发现，簇的游动速度和能量耗散强烈依赖于簇中的颗粒数量及其分形维数，以及所施加的明确步态速度的方向。研究发现，自推进簇的旋转速度随着簇内颗粒数量的增加而降低，这与最近文献中报道的实验观察结果一致。
