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Minimal design of a synthetic cilium

Clément Moreau1,2,*, Benjamin J. Walker3,4,†, Rebecca N. Poon5, Daniel Soto6, Daniel I. Goldman6, Eamonn A. Gaffney7,‡, and Kirsty Y. Wan5,§

  • *Contact author: clement.moreau@cnrs.fr
  • †Contact author: bjw43@bath.ac.uk
  • ‡Contact author: gaffney@maths.ox.ac.uk
  • §Contact author: k.y.wan2@exeter.ac.uk
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Phys. Rev. Research 6, L042061 – Published 12 December, 2024

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.6.L042061

Abstract

We study a slender filament beating in a viscous fluid with novel curvature-dependent bending stiffness. Our numerical and experimental investigations reveal that such differential stiffness can sustain planar bending waves far along flexible filaments, in stark contrast to the uniform-stiffness case which requires more sophisticated control. In particular, we establish basal actuation as a viable, parsimonious mechanism for generating high-amplitude planar bending waves. Moreover, the resulting beat patterns closely resemble the power-and-recovery strokes of propulsive biological filaments such as cilia, suggesting extensive applications in robotic and engineered systems.

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Phys. Rev. Research 6, L042061– Published 12 December, 2024
  • Received 20 February 2024
  • Revised 4 June 2024
  • Accepted 4 November 2024
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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