Simulation of Suspensions of Helical Rigid Fibers

The study at hand presents a numerical method for simulations of the dynamics of slender rigid fibers immersed in an incompressible fluid. The underlying mathematical formulation is based on a slender body approximation as applied to a boundary integral equation for Stokes flow. The curvature and torsion of the fibers can be arbitrarily specified, and we consider fiber shapes ranging from moderately bent to high curvature helical shapes. Two different settings are considered; naturally buoyant fibers in shear flow and heavier fibers sedimenting due to gravity. The dynamics show a very rich behavior, with fiber trajectories that display a very different degree of regularity depending on the initial conditions and fiber shape.