PhD Thesis – Jayant Pande

Abstract

In this thesis we use the bead-spring microswimmer design as a model system to study mechanical microswimming. The basic form of such a swimmer was in- troduced as the ‘three-sphere swimmer’ in Najafi and Golestanian [2004] and has found wide use in theoretical, numerical and experimental research. In our work, we have modified and extended the model in various ways, which, as explained in this thesis, allow us to gain insight into many general principles of microswim- ming, for instance the interplay between fluid drag force and swimmer elasticity in determining the efficiency of motion. The work presented here consists of both analytical solution of the equations of motion in the different investigated cases and corresponding numerical study.