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Optimal swimmers can be pullers, pushers or neutral depending on the shape

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Daddi-Moussa-Ider,  Abdallah       
Department of Living Matter Physics, Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Max Planck Society;

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Nasouri,  Babak
Department of Living Matter Physics, Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Max Planck Society;

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Vilfan,  Andrej       
Department of Living Matter Physics, Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Max Planck Society;

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Golestanian,  Ramin       
Department of Living Matter Physics, Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Max Planck Society;

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Citation

Daddi-Moussa-Ider, A., Nasouri, B., Vilfan, A., & Golestanian, R. (2021). Optimal swimmers can be pullers, pushers or neutral depending on the shape. Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 922: R5. doi:10.1017/jfm.2021.562.


Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-0008-E68E-5
Abstract
The ability of microswimmers to deploy optimal propulsion strategies is of paramount importance for their locomotory performance and survival at low Reynolds numbers. Although for perfectly spherical swimmers minimum dissipation requires a neutral-type swimming, any departure from the spherical shape may lead the swimmer to adopt a new propulsion strategy, namely those of puller- or pusher-type swimming. In this study, by using the minimum dissipation theorem for microswimmers, we determine the flow field of an optimal nearly spherical swimmer, and show that indeed depending on the shape profile, the optimal swimmer can be a puller, pusher or neutral. Using an asymptotic approach, we find that amongst all the modes of the shape function, only the third mode determines, to leading order, the swimming type of the optimal swimmer.