Abstract
We compared a dilute suspension of undulating rod-like particles (active suspension) with a similar one consisting of rigid rods (passive suspension) under shear flow. For the active suspension, a synchronised group of swimmers propel themselves forward by passing a travelling wave through their bodies while at the same time rotate due to planar background shear flow. Using a high resolution immersed body numerical simulations, we have shown that an active particle can exhibit complex dynamics, which is fundamentally different from a similar passive one. The orientation of the active particle consists of two separate oscillations: a low-frequency oscillation similar to the passive particle (determined by shear rate) and a high-frequency oscillation due to the body undulations. Nevertheless, different dynamics did not result in a major difference in rheological behaviour of the suspension. We found that the effective viscosity of the active suspension is equal to that of a passive one, i.e. self-propulsion did not change the viscosity of the suspension probably because of the high shear rate and inertia of our simulations.
Notes
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.