Numerical Simulation of Auto-Propulsion Mechanism of Microorganism Inside a Microchannel

S. Patra [1], A. Dalal [1], G. Biswas [1], S. Shah [2]
[1] Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati, Assam, India
[2] Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India
Published in 2015

The present study manifests the several ground breaking flow phenomena arising out of hydrodynamic interactions between two microorganisms swimming inside a microchannel with close proximity. The results theorized in the present investigation scrutinizes the varying behavior of the bacteria while moving inside a micro-capillary at different Reynolds number (Re). At high Re, the two swimming microorganisms tend to lock at anti-phase configuration. While at low Re, an in-phase configuration is attained as a consequence of hydrodynamic interaction alone. Computational fluid dynamic framework with fluid structure interaction (FSI) interface is adopted for experimentation in which the motion of fluid (solid) is described in Eulerian (Lagrangian) framework. All the numerical computations are performed in COMSOL Multiphysics software.