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Visually Based Characterization of the Incipient Particle Motion in Regular Substrates: From Laminar to Turbulent Conditions
Published on: February 22, 2018
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Chaotic Swimming of Phoretic Particles
Wei-Fan Hu1, Te-Sheng Lin2, Salima Rafai3
1Department of Applied Mathematics, National Chung Hsing University, 145 Xingda Road, Taichung 402, Taiwan.
Physical Review Letters
|December 24, 2019
Summary
A rigid phoretic particle
Area of Science:
- Fluid dynamics
- Soft matter physics
- Chemical engineering
Background:
- Phoretic particles self-propel through fluid gradients.
- Their motion is governed by solute emission rates, quantified by the Péclet number (Pe).
Purpose of the Study:
- To numerically investigate the trajectory dynamics of a rigid phoretic particle.
- To analyze the influence of the Péclet number (Pe) on particle motion and stability.
Main Methods:
- Numerical simulations of a rigid phoretic particle in an isotropic fluid.
- Varying the dimensionless solute emission rate (Péclet number, Pe).
Main Results:
- Particle motion initiates at a critical Pe.
- Trajectories transition from straight to meandering, then circular, and finally chaotic with increasing Pe.
- Chaotic motion becomes more frequent, leading to intermittency and fully chaotic trajectories.
Conclusions:
- The Péclet number dictates complex trajectory transitions in phoretic swimmers.
- Particle motion exhibits run-and-tumble-like statistics at short times and diffusive behavior at long times.
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