Direct Measurement of Unsteady Microscale Stokes Flow Using Optically Driven Microspheres

A growing body of work on the dynamics of eukaryotic flagella has noted that their oscillation frequencies are sufficiently high that the viscous penetration depth of unsteady Stokes flow is comparable to the scales over which flagella synchronize. Incorporating these effects into theories of synchronization requires an understanding of the global unsteady flows around oscillating bodies. Yet, there has been no precise experimental test on the microscale of the most basic aspects of such unsteady Stokes flow: the orbits of passive tracers and the position-dependent phase lag between the oscillating response of the fluid at a distant point and that of the driving particle. Here, we report the first such direct Lagrangian measurement of this unsteady flow. The method uses an array of 30 submicron tracer particles positioned by a time-shared optical trap at a range of distances and angular positions with respect to a larger, central particle, which is then driven by an oscillating optical trap at frequencies up to 400 Hz. In this microscale regime, the tracer dynamics is considerably simplified by the smallness of both inertial effects on particle motion and finite-frequency corrections to the Stokes drag law. The tracers are found to display elliptical Lissajous figures whose orientation and geometry are in agreement with a low-frequency expansion of the underlying dynamics, and the experimental phase shift between motion parallel and orthogonal to the oscillation axis exhibits a predicted scaling form in distance and angle. Possible implications of these results for synchronization dynamics are discussed.

Flow of Micropolar Fluid Between Two Parallel Plates with Different Periodic Suction and Injection

The unsteady stokes flow of incompressible micropolar fluid between two porous plates is considered. The lower plate is subjected to periodic suction and different periodic injection is applied at the upper plate. Stream function for the flow is obtained and the variation of velocity function f  & g with  is shown graphically. The effects of the dimensionless parameters p, frequency parameter pt , micropolarity parameter pl and the microrotation parameter pj on the velocity functions f  and microrotation velocity function g are discussed and shown through the graphs.

Unsteady Stokes Flow through Porous Channel with Periodic Suction and Injection with Slip Conditions

This work is concerned with the influence of slip conditions on unsteady stokes flow between parallel porous plates with periodic suction and injection. The obtained unsteady governing equations are solved analytically by similarity method. The characteristics of complex axial velocity and complex radial velocity for different values of parameters are analyzed. Graphical results for slip parameter reveal that it has significant influence on the axial and radial velocity profiles. The effects of suction or injection are also observed. The problem of unsteady stokes flow through porous plates with no slip is recovered as a special case of our problem.

An adjoint-based method for the numerical approximation of shape optimization problems in presence of fluid-structure interaction

In this work, we propose both a theoretical framework and a numerical method to tackle shape optimization problems related with fluid dynamics applications in presence of fluid-structure interactions. We present a general framework relying on the solution to a suitable adjoint problem and the characterization of the shape gradient of the cost functional to be minimized. We show how to derive a system of (first-order) optimality conditions combining several tools from shape analysis and how to exploit them in order to set a numerical iterative procedure to approximate the optimal solution. We also show how to deal efficiently with shape deformations (resulting from both the fluid-structure interaction and the optimization process). As benchmark case, we consider an unsteady Stokes flow in an elastic channel with compliant walls, whose motion under the effect of the flow is described through a linear Koiter shell model. Potential applications are related e.g. to design of cardiovascular prostheses in physiological flows or design of components in aerodynamics.

Oscillatory Marangoni flows with inertia

When the surface of a liquid has a non-uniform distribution of a surfactant that lowers surface tension, the resulting variation in surface tension drives a flow that spreads the surfactant towards a uniform distribution. We study the spreading dynamics of an insoluble and non-diffusing surfactant on an initially motionless liquid. We derive solutions for the evolution over time of sinusoidal variations in surfactant concentration with a small initial amplitude relative to the average concentration. In this limit, the coupled flow and surfactant transport equations are linear. In contrast to exponential decay when the inertia of the flow is negligible, the solution for unsteady Stokes flow exhibits oscillations when inertia is sufficient to spread the surfactant beyond a uniform distribution. This oscillatory behaviour exhibits two properties that distinguish it from that of a simple harmonic oscillator: the amplitude changes sign at most three times, and the decay at late times follows a power law with an exponent of $-3/2$. As the surface oscillates, the structure of the subsurface flow alternates between one and two rows of counter-rotating vortices, starting with one row and ending with two during the late-time monotonic decay. We also examine numerically the evolution of the surfactant distribution when the system is nonlinear due to a large initial amplitude.