Science / Technology - Colloquium
Friday, January 30, 2009
4:00 PM-5:00 AM
Olin Hall
107
The swimming of microorganisms in Newtonian fluids has been, and still remains, an active area of research. However, in many cases the natural environments which microorganisms navigate are non- Newtonian fluids or even gels. For example, mammalian sperm swim through mucus in the female reproductive tract. In this talk I focus on swimming through polymeric viscoelastic fluids and gels. First, the forces exerted by a viscoelastic medium are different from those exerted by a Newtonian fluid. I address how this affects swimming shapes and speeds of flexible swimmers such as sperm. Second, the kinematic reversibility of the zero-Reynolds-number Stokes flow constrains what types of swimming motions are effective in Newtonian fluids (Purcell's "Scallop theorem"). I discuss how this is altered in nonlinearly viscoelastic fluids, and whether any new swimming strategies become available to swimmers in viscoelastic media. Finally, I describe issues that arise for swimmers moving through viscoelastic gels, which are solids rather than fluids.
Cost: FREE
Sponsored by: WPI Physics Department, Dr. Izabela Stroe
Suggested Audiences: College
E-mail:
izabela@wpi.edu
Phone: 508-831-5249
Last Modified: January 21, 2009 at 10:36 AM
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