Enhancing Swimming Performance by Optimizing Structure of Helical Swimmers

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Robotics
• Fluid Dynamics

Background:

• Untethered microrobots offer potential for minimally invasive surgery and targeted drug delivery.
• Helical swimmers, inspired by prokaryotic flagella, are a focus for propulsion studies.
• Resistive Force Theory (RFT) is a key model for analyzing micro-scale locomotion.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze the influence of dimensional and kinematical parameters on helical swimmer propulsion using RFT.
• To quantitatively evaluate and optimize the design of helical swimmers for enhanced propulsion performance.
• To investigate the propulsion characteristics of tapered helical swimmers.

Main Methods:

• Application of Resistive Force Theory (RFT) to model helical swimmer hydrodynamics.
• Utilizing a propulsion efficiency index for quantitative performance evaluation.
• Modification of RFT to analyze tapered helical structures with varying helix radius.

Main Results:

• Helical swimmers with a constant helix angle demonstrate excellent propulsion.
• Increased tapering in helical structures leads to a higher propulsion efficiency index.
• The RFT-based analysis method is adaptable for studying microbial flagella.

Conclusions:

• Tapered helical swimmers exhibit more efficient motion compared to conventional designs.
• Optimizing structural parameters like tapering can significantly enhance microrobot performance.
• The developed theoretical framework can be extended to diverse micro-propulsion systems.