Development of coherent structures in concentrated suspensions of swimming model micro-organisms

Abstract

A swimming micro-organism is modelled as a squirming sphere with prescribed tangential surface velocity and referred to as a squirmer. The centre of mass of the sphere may be displaced from the geometric centre, and the effects of inertia and Brownian motion are neglected. The well-known Stokesian dynamics method is modified in order to simulate squirmer motions in a concentrated suspension. The movement of 216 identical squirmers in a concentrated suspension without any imposed flow is simulated in a cubic domain with periodic boundary conditions, and the coherent structures within the suspension are investigated. The results show that ( a ) a weak aggregation of cells appears as a result of the hydrodynamic interaction between cells; ( b ) the cells generate collective motions by the hydrodynamic interaction between themselves; and ( c ) the range and duration of the collective motions depend on the volume fraction and the squirmers' stresslet strengths. These tendencies show good qualitative agreement with previous experiments.