3,462 research outputs found
Microtransformers: controlled microscale navigation with flexible robots
Artificial microswimmers are a new technology with promising microfluidics
and biomedical applications, such as directed cargo transport, microscale
assembly, and targeted drug delivery. A fundamental barrier to realising this
potential is the ability to control the trajectories of multiple individuals
within a large group. A promising navigation mechanism for "fuel-based"
microswimmers, for example autophoretic Janus particles, entails modulating the
local environment to guide the swimmer, for instance by etching grooves in
microchannels. However, such techniques are currently limited to bulk guidance.
This paper will argue that by manufacturing microswimmers from phoretic
filaments of flexible shape-memory polymer, elastic transformations can
modulate swimming behaviour, allowing precision navigation of selected
individuals within a group through complex environments
Thrifty swimming with shear-thinning
Microscale propulsion is integral to numerous biomedical systems, for example
biofilm formation and human reproduction, where the surrounding fluids comprise
suspensions of polymers. These polymers endow the fluid with non-Newtonian
rheological properties, such as shear-thinning and viscoelasticity. Thus, the
complex dynamics of non-Newtonian fluids presents numerous modelling
challenges, strongly motivating experimental study. Here, we demonstrate that
failing to account for "out-of-plane" effects when analysing experimental data
of undulatory swimming through a shear-thinning fluid results in a significant
overestimate of fluid viscosity around the model swimmer C. elegans. This
miscalculation of viscosity corresponds with an overestimate of the power the
swimmer expends, a key biophysical quantity important for understanding the
internal mechanics of the swimmer. As experimental flow tracking techniques
improve, accurate experimental estimates of power consumption using this
technique will arise in similar undulatory systems, such as the planar beating
of human sperm through cervical mucus, will be required to probe the
interaction between internal power generation, fluid rheology, and the
resulting waveform
3d numerical model of a confined fracture tests in concrete
The paper deals with the numerical simulation of a confined fracture test in concrete. The test is part of the experimental work carried out at ETSECCPB-UPC in order to elucidate the existence of a second mode of fracture under shear and high compression, and evaluate the associated fracture energy. The specimen is a short cylinder with also cylindrical coaxial notches similar the one proposed by Luong (1990), which is introduced in a largecapacity triaxial cell, protected with membranes and subject to different levels of confining pressure prior to vertical loading. In the experiments, the main crack follows the preestablished cylindrical notch path, which is in itself a significant achievement. The loaddisplacement curves for various confining pressures also seem to follow the expected trend according to the underlying conceptual model. The FE model developed includes zerothickness interface elements with fracture-based constitutive laws, which are pre-inserted along the cylindrical ligament and the potential radial crack plane. The results reproduce reasonably well the overall force-displacement curves of the test for various confinement levels, and make it possible to identify the fracture parameters including the fracture energies in modes I and IIa
Doped AB_2 Hubbard Chain: Spiral, Nagaoka and RVB States, Phase Separation and Luttinger Liquid Behavior
We present an extensive numerical study of the Hubbard model on the doped
AB chain, both in the weak coupling and the infinite-U limit. Due to the
special unit cell topology, this system displays a rich variety of phases as
function of hole doping () away from half-filling. Near half-filling,
spiral states develop in the weak coupling regime, while Nagaoka itinerant
ferromagnetism is observed in the infinite-U limit. For higher doping the
system phase-separates before reaching a Mott insulating phase of short-range
RVB states at . Moreover, for we observe a crossover,
which anticipates the Luttinger liquid behavior for .Comment: 11 pages, 13 figure
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