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Updated: May 25, 2026

Using Microfluidics and Fluorescence Microscopy to Study the Assembly Dynamics of Single Actin Filaments and Bundles
Published on: May 5, 2022
Flapping dynamics of a flexible filament
H Ait Abderrahmane1, M P Paidoussis, M Fayed
1Department of Mechanical Engineering, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec H3A2K6, Canada.
Abstract:
This paper investigates the dynamics of the flapping regime of a filament placed in a two-dimensional soap-film flow for different filament lengths and flow speeds. It was found that the onset of flapping is quasiperiodic, with the main flapping amplitude and frequency modulated by low-amplitude, low-frequency oscillation. At higher flow velocities, the oscillation becomes chaotic. The transition to chaos occurs via the quasiperiodic route to chaos. A new bistability phenomenon was discovered in which the system alternates between the stretched-straight and oscillatory states, which is here referred to as "switching oscillation." Unlike some previously reported forms of bistability, in this case the system alternates between the two states continuously, without any external perturbation.
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