2002/08/06 by Marco Cosentino Lagomarsino, M. Cosentino Lagomarsino, Fabrizio Capuani +5 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Biological Physics (physics.bio-ph) #Computational Physics (physics.comp-ph) #Experimental and Theoretical Physics Studies #FOS: Physical sciences #physics.bio-ph #physics.comp-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.physics/0208022
20 pages
arxiv created 2002/08/06 · openalex publication_date 2002/08/06 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We describe a method, based on techniques used in molecular dynamics, for simulating the inertialess dynamics of an elastic filament immersed in a fluid. The model is used to study the "one-armed swimmer". That is, a flexible appendage externally perturbed at one extremity. For small amplitude motion our simulations confirm theoretical predictions that, for a filament of given length and stiffness, there is a driving frequency that is optimal for both speed and efficiency. However, we find that to calculate absolute values of the swimming speed we need to slightly modify existing theoretical approaches. For the more realistic case of large amplitude motion we find that while the basic picture remains the same, the dependence of the swimming speed on both frequency and amplitude is substantially modified. For realistic amplitudes we show that the one armed swimmer is comparatively neither inefficient nor slow. This begs the question, why are there little or no one armed swimmers in nature?