No Arabic abstract
We introduce a general decomposition of the stress tensor for incompressible fluids in terms of its components on a tensorial basis adapted to the local flow conditions, which include extensional flows, simple shear flows, and any type of mixed flows. Such a basis is determined solely by the symmetric part of the velocity gradient and allows for a straightforward interpretation of the non-Newtonian response in any local flow conditions. In steady homogeneous flows, the material functions that represent the components of the stress on the adapted basis generalize and complete the classical set of viscometric functions used to characterize the response in simple shear flows. Such a general decomposition of the stress is effective in coherently organizing and interpreting rheological data from laboratory measurements and computational studies in non-viscometric steady flows of great importance for practical applications. The decomposition of the stress in terms with clearly distinct roles is also useful in developing constitutive models.
Marine microorganisms must cope with complex flow patterns and even turbulence as they navigate the ocean. To survive they must avoid predation and find efficient energy sources. A major difficulty in analysing possible survival strategies is that the time series of environmental cues in non-linear flow is complex, and that it depends on the decisions taken by the organism. One way of determining and evaluating optimal strategies is reinforcement learning. In a proof-of-principle study, Colabrese et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. (2017)] used this method to find out how a micro-swimmer in a vortex flow can navigate towards the surface as quickly as possible, given a fixed swimming speed. The swimmer measured its instantaneous swimming direction and the local flow vorticity in the laboratory frame, and reacted to these cues by swimming either left, right, up, or down. However, usually a motile microorganism measures the local flow rather than global information, and it can only react in relation to the local flow, because in general it cannot access global information (such as up or down in the laboratory frame). Here we analyse optimal strategies with local signals and actions that do not refer to the laboratory frame. We demonstrate that symmetry-breaking is required in order to learn vertical migration in a meaningful way. Using reinforcement learning we analyse the emerging strategies for different sets of environmental cues that microorganisms are known to measure.
Geometric confinements play an important role in many physical and biological processes and significantly affect the rheology and behavior of colloidal suspensions at low Reynolds numbers. On the basis of the linear Stokes equations, we investigate theoretically and computationally the viscous azimuthal flow induced by the slow rotation of a small spherical particle located in the vicinity of a rigid no-slip disk or inside a gap between two coaxially positioned rigid no-slip disks of the same radius. We formulate the solution of the hydrodynamic problem as a mixed-boundary-value problem in the whole fluid domain, which we subsequently transform into a system of dual integral equations. Near a stationary disk, we show that the resulting integral equation can be reduced into an elementary Abel integral equation that admits a unique analytical solution. Between two coaxially positioned stationary disks, we demonstrate that the flow problem can be transformed into a system of two Fredholm integral equations of the first kind. The latter are solved by means of numerical approaches. Using our solution, we further investigate the effect of the disks on the slow rotational motion of a colloidal particle and provide expressions of the hydrodynamic mobility as a function of the system geometry. We compare our results with corresponding finite-element simulations and observe very good agreement.
Laminar flow over a bubble mattress is expected to experience a significant reduction in friction since the individual surfaces of the bubbles are shear-free. However, if the bubbles are sufficiently curved, their protrusion into the fluid and along the flow direction can lead to an increase in friction as was recently demonstrated experimentally and computationally. We provide in this paper a simple model for this result. We consider a shear flow at low Reynolds number past a two-dimensional array of bubbles, and calculate analytically the effective slip length of the surface as function of the bubble geometry in the dilute limit. Our model is able to reproduce quantitatively the relationship between effective friction and bubble geometry obtained in numerical computations, and in particular: (a) The asymmetry in friction between convex and concave bubbles, and (b) the existence of a geometric transition from reduced to enhanced friction at a critical bubble protrusion angle.
We study flow driven through a finite-length planar rigid channel by a fixed upstream flux, where a segment of one wall is replaced by a pre-stressed elastic beam subject to uniform external pressure. The steady and unsteady systems are solved using a finite element method. Previous studies have shown that the system can exhibit three steady states for some parameters (termed the upper, intermediate and lower steady branches, respectively). Of these, the intermediate branch is always unstable while the upper and lower steady branches can (independently) become unstable to self-excited oscillations. We show that for some parameter combinations the system is unstable to both upper and lower branch oscillations simultaneously. However, we show that these two instabilities eventually merge together for large enough Reynolds numbers, exhibiting a nonlinear limit cycle which retains characteristics of both the upper and lower branches of oscillations. Furthermore, we show that increasing the beam pre-tension suppresses the region of multiple steady states but preserves the onset of oscillations. Conversely, increasing the beam thickness (a proxy for increasing bending stiffness) suppresses both multiple steady states and the onset of oscillations.
Channel formation and branching is widely seen in physical systems where movement of fluid through a porous structure causes the spatiotemporal evolution of the medium in response to the flow, in turn causing flow pathways to evolve. We provide a simple theoretical framework that embodies this feedback mechanism in a multi-phase model for flow through a fragile porous medium with a dynamic permeability. Numerical simulations of the model show the emergence of branched networks whose topology is determined by the geometry of external flow forcing. This allows us to delineate the conditions under which splitting and/or coalescing branched network formation is favored, with potential implications for both understanding and controlling branching in soft frangible media.