Transactions on Nanotechnology

Planar Wave Propagation Through a Tapered Flagellated Nanoswimmer

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Transactions on Nanotechnology TNANO-00136-2012.R1 Regular Papers n/a

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Rathore, Jitendra; BITS Pilani, Department of Mechanical Engineering Majumdar, Rwitajit; BITS Pilani, Department of Mechanical Engineering Sharma, Niti Nipun; BITS Pilani, Department of Mechanical Engineering Nanoswimmer, Flagellar Propulsion, Propulsion Efficiency, Propulsion Velocity, Elasticity

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Planar Wave Propagation Through a Tapered Flagellated Nanoswimmer

J.S Rathore*, R. Majumdar and N.N. Sharma
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Birla Institute of Technology and Science Pilani, India *Corresponding author email: jsrbits@gmail.com
Abstract Nanoswimmers are important because of their potential use for the purpose of drug delivery, monitoring and diagnostics for in-vivo biomedical application. They mimic microorganisms and mostly modeled as propelled by beating or rotating flagella. In the vast literature available on modeling of flagellar propulsion, the flagellum is considered constant diameter where as the actual microorganism have tapered flagella. The present study deals with the modeling and simulation of planar wave propagation through a tapered flagellum of a nanoswimmer for a given taper ratio. The performance parameters of velocity and efficiency are compared with the uniform diameter case. Taper diameter modeling of flagellum gives a superior performance by indicating higher velocity and efficiency. The parametric study with respect to the elasticity of the material of the flagellum and its beat frequency is also analyzed. The performance increases with increasing frequency and the maxima for both velocity and efficiency of the tapered case is reached at a lower elasticity than the uniform case. The maximum efficiency of the taper case is almost double the maxima of the uniform diameter flagellum. The observations in the present study can be utilized while designing artificial flagellum for nanoswimmers and suggests that the tapered flagellum would be a more optimal choice of design as compared to the uniform one of the same volume. Keywords- Nanoswimmer; Flagellar Propulsion; Propulsion Efficiency; Propulsion Velocity; Elasticity

assumed the drag coefficient as a function of viscosity of medium, the wavelength and diameter of the flagellum. Machin [5] in 1958 modified it as a function of viscosity and Reynolds number. Later Wiggins et.al. [7] proposed it to be a function of viscosity of the medium and length to radius ratio of the flagellum. Over the period of time this coefficient has changed its form for better approximation of the propulsion parameters. In almost all models available in literature the diameter of the flagellum is considered constant. But in nature the actual profile is generally tapered and the head also is more of an oblate spheroid in shape. The debate therefore is to consider taper of flagellum and model drag accordingly and hence investigate the effect of its inclusion in the evaluation of shape, velocity and efficiency of a beating flagellum. The present study deals with the modeling for the planar wave propagation through a tapered flagellum and calculates its performance parameters.

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Figure 1. Physical interpretation of tapered flagellum

I.

INTRODUCTION

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LAGELLA based propulsion is seen extensively in nature and has been proposed as a means of propelling nanoswimmers. Nanoswimmers are important because of their potential use for the purpose of drug delivery, monitoring and diagnostics for in-vivo biomedical application [1], [2]. Purcell in his landmark talk mentioned [3] two methods of propulsion employed by the nature that work at low Re number, namely, planar bending wave and helical wave propulsion. Modeling of the planar wave for flagellar propulsion has been initiated in 1955 by Sir J. Gray et.al. [4]. The model proposed in [4] uses Resistive Force Theory (RFT) to predict shape form, speed and efficiency of the flagella of many microorganisms. Literature [5]-[12] is available where the flagella are considered as an elastic filament of a constant diameter in few hundreds of nanometer range propelling an inert spherical head. Drag due to the medium generates the main thrust force for propulsion. The velocity of wave propagation is correlated with the thrust force generated by the flagellum by a drag coefficient. Gray et. al. [4]

II.

MATHEMATICAL MODELLING

Figure 1 describes a physical representation of the tapered flagellum of length L. A cylindrical element of length ds at a distance x from the proximal end is analyzed. Applying RFT [4], and balancing the viscous drag with the elastic restoring force on the element gives the governing equation of the model as
2 2 EI ( x ) y = C ( x) y n t x 2 x 2

(1)

where E is the elasticity of the material of flagella, y is the transverse displacement and area moment of inertia I(x), at any given position over length is given as

I(x) =

r(x)4
4

(2)

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The local normal and longitudinal drag coefficients for the cylindrical element with radius r(x) in a medium having viscosity is modified form as given in [13] to accommodate the tapered profile and is given as

Fthrust y y = (Cn (x) Cl (x)) VxCl (x) (10) x t x

Similarly, the net transverse force at any instant of time is given as
Ftransverse y y = (Cn ( x ) Cl ( x))Vx Cn ( x ) x x t

Cn (x) =

4 L ln + 0.5 r(x) 2 L ln 0.5 r(x)

(3)

(11)

Cl (x) =

(4)

In uniform diameter case, Cn and Cl are constant through out the length of the flagellum as r is constant. The actuation of the flagellum is at the proximal end with the tail fixed to the head and with a time dependent slope having maxima as G at an angular frequency of . At the distal end the shear force and the bending moment vanishes. The boundary conditions for the specified case are given as the following.

where Vx is the net forward velocity of the swimmer, Cn(x) and Cl(x) are the normal and longitudinal drag coefficients given in (3) and (4), respectively. Integrating the thrust force over length we calculate the average thrust generated by the flagellum. This is used to overcome the drag due to the head. Drag due to a spherical head of radius rh in a viscous medium of viscosity is given as

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(5) (6) (7) (8)
mj

Fhead = 6 rhVx

(12)

yx=0 = 0 y'x=0 = Geit y ''x=L = 0 y ''' = 0 x=L

Equating the net thrust force from the flagellum to the drag of the head we calculate the forward velocity Vx. The efficiency () of a nanoswimmer is calculated as the ratio of useful power developed for forward motion to the total power dissipated by the swimmer in wiggle of the tail.

The general solution of (1) is given as [14]

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(9)

F
=
0

thrust V x L

y = e iwt A j (kx + 1)
j =1

F
0

(13)
transverse V y

thrust Vx +

F
0

Re

where the four coefficients Aj are calculated by substituting the boundary conditions given in (5) (8) in (9), k is the slope of the linear taper and mj are the roots of the auxiliary equation of (1). The parametric variation of the slope k is carried on to check the consequence on velocity and efficiency of nanoswimmer. The findings are highlighted in the Results section. III. NUMERICAL SIMULATIONS

Numerical simulation of the propulsion model given by (9) for taper flagellum is carried out in MATLAB . The tail is discretized in 100 elements around which the solution converges. A mesh grid is made to discretize the total time period also into 100 time steps. From the computed mode shapes of the planar wave, partial derivatives with respect to space and time are calculated using gradient function. Considering small amplitude approximation and having a similar approach as [4], the length of the element ds ~ dx as well as the forward thrust at any instance of time is derived as

where Vy represents the transverse velocity of element ds of the tail. The mode shapes, velocity and efficiency are first obtained for uniform flagella of length 50 m and diameter 400 nm. The head radius to flagellar length ratio is kept as 0.3 [13]. The flexural rigidity is considered in the range of 10-21 Nm2 [15]. To compare the uniform diameter (case A) with the tapered geometry the volume of the flagellum is kept constant and two new cases are developed for a given ratio of initial and final diameter. In case B the length is kept equal to that of the uniform diameter flagellum study and in case C the initial diameter is kept equal to the diameter of the uniform case. For the given flexural rigidity and diameter of uniform flagellum the value of flexural modulus comes in the order of 1 MPa. The same modulus value is used for the tapered cases. The simulations were carried out in MATLAB . The results obtained are given in the next section.

The taper ratio of the tail (k) and its effect on velocity and efficiency ratio is illustrated in Fig. 2. The variation of the velocity and efficiency ratio for taper flagella case (case B) to constant diameter flagella case (case A)

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IV.

RESULTS

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with respect to taper ratio gives the trend in performance of the nanoswimmer. In the range of simulation for k varying from 1 to 50, efficiency ratio increases non-linearly and reaches a maximum and then starts decreasing. The velocity ratio however increases continuously though seemingly with a decreasing rate at higher values of k.

Figure 3. Mode shapes of planar wave propulsion in different cases

Figure 2. Performance ratio over parametric variation of taper ratio

A specific case of uniform diameter flagellum is obtained for the input parameters as mentioned in second column of Table I. Keeping volume constant generates the two other cases (B and C) and in the corresponding inputs a taper ratio of 3:1 changes the initial and final radius of the flagellum.
TABLE I. Case A Constant Diameter Radius (nm) Length ( m) Head radius( m) Viscosity (Pas) Frequency (Hz) Elasticity (MPa) 200 50 15 0.001 35 1 PARAMETERS FOR SIMULATION Case B Taper Diameter
(equal length as in Case A)

Initial Final 50 15 0.001 35 1

The mode shapes of all three cases are plotted in Fig. 3. The output velocity and efficiency are noted in Table II.

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288.23 96.07 Initial Final

TABLE II. Case A Constant Diameter Velocity ( m/s) Thrust Force (pN) Efficiency (10-2 %) 3.604 1.018 3.029

RESULTS Case C Taper Diameter

(equal initial diameter as in Case A)

Case B Taper Diameter

(equal length as in Case A)

9.804 2.772 10

3.427 0.969 0.642

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Case C Taper Diameter
(equal initial diameter as in Case A)

103.85 15 0.001 35 1

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200 66.66

The mode shape of case A is similar to those obtained by Lauga [13]. For case B the amplitude is higher than that of case A. Analyzing the performance parameters, case B shows both higher velocity and efficiency compared to case A, while in case C the efficiency falls drastically compared to both cases A and B, as the flagellum length is greater and a considerable part of it exhibits no oscillations and hence produces larger drag and almost no thrust. Case C with lower efficiency is neglected for further parametric studies. Cases A and B are analyzed for varying elasticity and frequency. This is discussed in the following section.

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As projected in Table II the calculated velocity is in the order of 10 m/s, where as actually observed velocity in the microorganisms are around 100 m/s or higher [15]. For a given geometry, parametric variation helps to investigate factors for higher performance. By choosing appropriate elasticity of material and beating frequency of flagellum we can achieve the velocity observed in nature.

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V.

DISCUSSION

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Figure 4. Velocity over parametric variation of Elasticity

Figure 6. Velocity ratio over parametric variation of Elasticity

Keeping geometric parameters as stated in Table I, Fig. 4 illustrates the variation of elasticity over a range from 0.1 MPa to 1 GPa. A family of plots of velocity for increasing frequency from 25 Hz to 45 Hz is plotted. It shows consistent increase in velocity as frequency increases. For the uniform diameter case (case A) a maximum velocity of 103 m/s is observed at a higher frequency of 45 Hz when elasticity is around 240 MPa, while the maxima of velocity for the taper diameter case (case B) is 181 m/s, which is achieved at a lower elasticity of around 125 MPa.

Figure 5. Efficiency over parametric variation of Elasticity

For both case A and B, Fig. 5 illustrates the variation of efficiency over elasticity for three different frequencies. The tapered diameter case (case B) gives a higher maximum efficiency of 4.15% for the material with lower elasticity of 60 MPa at a lower frequency of 25 Hz, while the maximum efficiency of uniform diameter case (case A) is only 2.04% which is achieved at a elasticity of around 88.1 MPa for a beating frequency of 25 Hz.

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Figure 7. Efficiency ratio over parametric variation of Elasticity

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Figure 6 and 7 shows the variation of the ratio of velocity (i.e. Vtaper/Vuniform) and efficiency ratio (i.e. taper/uniform) over elasticity. It can be observed, for a given frequency the velocity and efficiency ratio for the taper to uniform case can go as high as 3.2 times and 3.4 times respectively. In nature the observed frequency is around 35 Hz [4]. For this value the velocity for the tapered case with equal length is almost double the velocity for corresponding uniform case. This confirms that the taper flagellum is a better approximation of the observation made in actual microorganisms.

The propulsion characteristics of a tapered flagellum propagating planar waves have been studied and the same is compared to the case of uniform flagellum. Mode shapes of a tapered flagellum are predicted based on elastohydrodynamic equations. Keeping the flagellum volume constant, two new cases are developed for a given ratio of initial and final diameter. Results indicate that the linearly tapered flagellum planar model (case B) showed improved performance higher velocity and efficiency compared to the uniform flagellum model. For a given frequency, the velocity and efficiency ratio for the taper to uniform case can go as high as 3.2 times and 3.4 times respectively. The

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VI.

CONCLUSION

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maximum efficiency of the taper case is almost double the maximum efficiency of the uniform diameter case. Considering this the tapered flagellum gives a more realistic value of the performance indicators that has not been shown or attempted in literature. REFERENCES
[1] [2] [3] [4] A. A. G. Requicha, Nanorobots, NEMS, and Nanoassembly, Proc. IEEE, vol. 9, no. 11, pp. 1922-1933, 2003. R. A. Freitas Jr., Nanomedicine, vol. I: Basic Capabilities, Landes Bioscience, 1999, http://www.nanomedicine.com. E. M. Purcell, Life at Low Reynolds Number, Amer. J. Phys., vol.45, no.1, pp. 3-11, 1977. J. Gray, and G. J. Hancock, The Propulsion of Sea-urchin Spermatozoa, Journal of Experimental Biology, vol. 32, pp. 802-814, 1955. K.E. Machin, Wave Propagation along Flagella, Journal of Experimental Biology, vol. 35, pp. 796-806,1958. C. Brennen and H. Winet, Fluid Mechanics of Propulsion by Cilia and Flagella, Annu. Rev. Fluid Mech., vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 339-398, 1977. C. H. Wiggins and R.E. Goldstein, Flexive and Propulsive Dynamics of Elastica at Low Reynolds Number, Physical Review Letters, vol. 80, no. 17, pp 3879-3882, 1998. E. Lauga and T. R. Powers The Hydrodynamics of Swimming Microorganisms, Reports on Progress in Physics, vol. 72, no. 9, pp. 1-58, 2009. R. Majumdar, J. S. Rathore and N. N. Sharma, Simulation of Swimming Nanorobots in Biological Fluids, in Proc 4th Int. Conf. on Autonomous Robots and Agents, New Zealand, 2009. J.S. Rathore and N.N. Sharma, Engineering Nanorobots: Chronology of Modeling Flagellar Propulsion, J. Nanotechnol. Eng. Med., Transactions of the ASME, vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 031001: 1-6, 2010. H. Hoshikawa and R. Kamiya, Elastic Properties of Bacterial Flagellar Filaments: II. Determination of the Modulus of Rrigidity, Biophys. Chem., vol. 22, no. 3, pp. 159-166, 1985. B. Behkam and M. Sitti, Design Methodology for Biomimetic Propulsion of Miniature Swimming Robots, Journal of Dynamics Systems, Measurements, and Control, Transactions of the ASME, vol. 128, pp. 36-43, 2006. E. Lauga, Floppy swimming: Viscous Locomotion of Actuated Elastica, Physical Review E, vol. 75, pp. 041916:1-16, 2007. M. Braun, Differential Equations and Their Applications. 4th ed., New York: Springer-Verlag, 1992, ch. 2. R. Rikmenspoel, The Tail Movement of Bull Spermatozoa: Observation and Model Calculation, Biophysical Journal, vol. 5, pp. 365-392, 1965.

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