The hydrodynamic interactions among bacterial cell bodies, flagella, and surrounding boundaries are crucial for understanding bacterial motility in complex environments. In this study, we demonstrate that each slender flagellum can be modeled as a series of spheres and the interactions between these spheres can be accurately characterized using a resistance matrix. This approach allows us to effectively and efficiently evaluate the propulsive effects of the flagella. Notably, our investigation into bacterial motility near a colloidal sphere reveals significant discrepancies between results derived from the twin multipole moment and those obtained through resistive force theory. Consequently, neglecting the hydrodynamic interactions among cell bodies, flagella, and colloidal spheres may lead to substantial inaccuracies. Our model simplifies bacteria into a series of spheres, making it well-suited for examining bacterial motility near spherical boundaries and the nonlinear deformation dynamics of elastic flagella.
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January 2025
Research Article|
January 06 2025
Effective and efficient modeling of the hydrodynamics for bacterial flagella
Baopi Liu (刘葆僻)
;
Baopi Liu (刘葆僻)
a)
(Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Software, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing)
1
Complex Systems Division, Beijing Computational Science Research Center
, Beijing 100193, China
a)Author to whom correspondence should be addressed: [email protected]
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Lu Chen (陈璐)
;
Lu Chen (陈璐)
(Formal analysis, Methodology, Validation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing)
2
College of Physics, Changchun Normal University
, Changchun, Jilin 130032, China
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Ji Zhang (张骥)
Ji Zhang (张骥)
(Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Validation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing)
3
Zhejiang Lab
, Hangzhou 311100, China
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a)Author to whom correspondence should be addressed: [email protected]
Physics of Fluids 37, 011903 (2025)
Article history
Received:
November 02 2024
Accepted:
December 15 2024
Citation
Baopi Liu, Lu Chen, Ji Zhang; Effective and efficient modeling of the hydrodynamics for bacterial flagella. Physics of Fluids 1 January 2025; 37 (1): 011903. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0246494
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