2014/10/16 by Gwynn J. Elfring, Gwynn Elfring, Eric Lauga +2 · 1 citation
Engineering · Medicine · Physics and Astronomy · #Biological Physics (physics.bio-ph) #Blood properties and coagulation #FOS: Physical sciences #Fluid Dynamics (physics.flu-dyn) #Micro and Nano Robotics #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) #Sports Dynamics and Biomechanics #cond-mat.soft #physics.bio-ph #physics.flu-dyn
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1410.4322
Chapter 8 in "Complex Fluids in Biological Systems", Saverio E. Spagnolie (Ed.), Springer (2015)
openalex publication_date 2014/10/16 · arxiv created 2015/06/28 · arxiv updated 2015/06/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Microorganisms such as bacteria often swim in fluid environments that cannot be classified as Newtonian. Many biological fluids contain polymers or other heterogeneities which may yield complex rheology. For a given set of boundary conditions on a moving organism, flows can be substantially different in complex fluids, while non-Newtonian stresses can alter the gait of the microorganisms themselves. Heterogeneities in the fluid may also be characterized by length scales on the order of the organism itself leading to additional dynamic complexity. In this chapter we present a theoretical overview of small-scale locomotion in complex fluids with a focus on recent efforts quantifying the impact of non-Newtonian rheology on swimming microorganisms.