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Lord Kelvin's isotropic helicoid

Darci Collins1, Rami J. Hamati1, Fabien Candelier2, Kristian Gustavsson3, Bernhard Mehlig3,*, and Greg A. Voth1,†

  • 1Department of Physics, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut 06459, USA
  • 2Aix Marseille Univ., CNRS, IUSTI, Marseille, France
  • 3Department of Physics, Gothenburg University, 41296 Gothenburg, Sweden

  • *Corresponding author: bernhard.mehlig@physics.gu.se
  • †Corresponding author: gvoth@wesleyan.edu
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Phys. Rev. Fluids 6, 074302 – Published 13 July, 2021

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevFluids.6.074302

Abstract

Nearly 150 years ago, Lord Kelvin proposed the isotropic helicoid, a particle with isotropic yet chiral interactions with a fluid so that translation couples to rotation. An implementation of his design fabricated with a three-dimensional printer is found experimentally to have no detectable translation-rotation coupling, although the particle point-group symmetry allows this coupling. We explain these results by demonstrating that in Stokes flow, the chiral coupling of such isotropic helicoids made out of nonchiral vanes is due only to hydrodynamic interactions between these vanes. Therefore it is small. In summary, Kelvin's predicted isotropic helicoid exists, but only as a weak breaking of a symmetry of noninteracting vanes in Stokes flow.

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synopsis

Testing a 150-year-old Hydrodynamics Prediction

Published 13 July, 2021

A new experiment finds that a sphere with “fins” maintains its orientation in a flowing fluid, despite a 19th century prediction that it would spin.

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Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. Fluids 6, 074302– Published 13 July, 2021
  • Received 12 June 2020
  • Accepted 1 June 2021
Article part of CHORUS
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