ORCID ID
Ryan, Shawn/0000-0003-2468-1827
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
3-1-2016
Publication Title
Bulletin of Mathematical Biology
Abstract
Interactions between swimming bacteria have led to remarkable experimentally observable macroscopic properties such as the reduction in the effective viscosity, enhanced mixing, and diffusion. In this work, we study an individual-based model for a suspension of interacting point dipoles representing bacteria in order to gain greater insight into the physical mechanisms responsible for the drastic reduction in the effective viscosity. In particular, asymptotic analysis is carried out on the corresponding kinetic equation governing the distribution of bacteria orientations. This allows one to derive an explicit asymptotic formula for the effective viscosity of the bacterial suspension in the limit of bacterium non-sphericity. The results show good qualitative agreement with numerical simulations and previous experimental observations. Finally, we justify our approach by proving existence, uniqueness, and regularity properties for this kinetic PDE model.
Repository Citation
Potomkin, Mykhailo; Ryan, Shawn D.; and Berlyand, Leonid, "Effective Rheological Properties in Semi-dilute Bacterial Suspensions" (2016). Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications. 300.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/scimath_facpub/300
DOI
10.1007/s11538-016-0156-2
Version
Postprint
Publisher's Statement
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11538-016-0156-2
Volume
78
Issue
3
