2018 Annual Meeting of the Society for Mathematical Biology & the Japanese Society for Mathematical Biology

Mixing and pumping by pairs of helices in a viscous fluid

10 Jul 2018, 10:30

30m

New Law School/--024 (University of Sydney)

Oral Presentation Minisymposium: How mixing generates spatial gradients significant to signalling, waste removal and the distribution of microorganisms How mixing generates spatial gradients significant to signalling, waste removal, and the distribution of microorganisms

Speaker

Amy Buchmann (Tulane University)

Description

It is difficult to mix and pump fluid in microfluidics devices because the traditional methods of mixing and pumping at large length scales don’t work at small length scales. Experimental work has suggested that rotating helical flagella may be used to effectively mix and pump fluid in microfluidics devices. To further explore this idea and to characterize the flow features around rotating helices, we study the hydrodynamic interactions between two rigid helices rotating at a constant velocity. Helices are coupled to a viscous fluid using a numerical method based upon a centerline distribution of regularized Stokeslets, and we analyze the effects of spacing and phase shift on mixing and pumping.