Integral-based spectral method for inextensible slender fibers in Stokes flow

Abstract

The cell cytoskeleton is a dynamic gel of semi-flexible, inextensible filaments and dynamic cross-linkers, all suspended in a viscous fluid. Here a spectral method is developed to simulate this gel, assuming filament smoothness. Interactions between filaments and the fluid are accounted for with a nonlocal slender body theory, reformulated in terms of the Rotne-Prager-Yamakawa tensor. Inextensibility is treated through a novel weak formulation, with constraint forces obtained using the principle of virtual work, and the filaments updated via tangent vector rotations on the unit sphere. Gel simulations show that nonlocal hydrodynamic forces contribute nontrivially to total suspension stress.

Topics & Concepts