We have studied a biomimetic swimmer inspired by the motility mechanisms of bacteria such as E. coli theoretically and experimentally. Even though E. coli uses one or several rotating helical filaments to swim, a single rotating helical filament swimmer is considered in this work. The performance of this swimmer was estimated by modeling the dynamics of a swimmer in viscous fluid. The model has an ellipsoidal cell body propelled by a helical filament. We applied the resistive force theory on this model to calculate the linear swimming speed and the efficiency of the model. A parametric study on the swimming velocity was performed. To validate the theoretical results, a biomimetic swimmer was fabricated and an experiment setup was prepared to measure the swimming speed in silicone oil. In addition, we have studied the flow patterns surrounding the filament with a finite element simulation to understand the mechanism of propulsion.

Date Published: 9 April 2010
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 7643, Active and Passive Smart Structures and Integrated Systems 2010, 76431S (9 April 2010); doi: 10.1117/12.848570

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7643:
Active and Passive Smart Structures and Integrated Systems 2010
Mehrdad N. Ghasemi-Nejhad, Editor(s)