The 3D coarse-graining formulation of interacting elastohydrodynamic filaments and multi-body microhydrodynamics

Abstract

Elastic filaments are vital to biological, physical and engineering systems, from cilia driving fluid in the lungs to artificial swimmers and micro-robotics. Simulating slender structures requires intricate balance of elastic, body, active, and hydrodynamic moments, all in three-dimensions. Here, we present a generalised 3D coarse-graining formulation that is efficient, simple-to-implement, readily extendable and usable for a wide array of applications. Our method allows for simulation of collections of 3D elastic filaments, capable of full flexural and torsional deformations, coupled non-locally via hydrodynamic interactions, and including multi-body microhydrodynamics of structures with arbitrary geometry. The method exploits the exponential mapping of quaternions for tracking three-dimensional rotations of each interacting element in the system, allowing for computation times up to 150 times faster than a direct quaternion implementation. Spheres are used as a ‘building block’ of both filaments and solid micro-structures for straightforward and intuitive construction of arbitrary three-dimensional geometries present in the environment. We highlight the strengths of the method in a series of non-trivial applications including bi-flagellated swimming, sperm-egg scattering, and particle transport by cilia arrays. Applications to lab-on-a-chip devices, multi-filaments, mono-to-multi flagellated microorganisms, Brownian polymers, and micro-robotics are straightforward. A Matlab code is provided for further customization and generalizations.