Interaction Between Two Closely-Spaced Waving Slender Elastic Cylinders Immersed in a Viscous Fluid

TL;DR

This study investigates the hydrodynamic interaction between two closely-spaced waving elastic cylinders in a viscous fluid, revealing complex oscillation patterns and frequency harmonics, with experimental validation of the theoretical model.

Contribution

The paper provides a novel asymptotic analysis of the interaction forces and oscillation modes between elastic cylinders, including the derivation of harmonic frequency components and experimental verification.

Findings

Interaction forces depend on actuation frequencies and phase differences.

Higher-order oscillations include combined harmonic frequencies.

Experimental results confirm theoretical predictions.

Abstract

We study the hydrodynamic interaction between two closely-spaced waving elastic cylinders immersed within a viscous liquid, at the creeping flow regime. The cylinders are actuated by a forced oscillation of the slope at their clamped end and are free at the opposite end. We obtain an expression for the interaction force and apply an asymptotic expansion based on a small parameter representing the ratio between the elastic deflections and the distance between the cylinders. The leading-order solution is an asymmetric oscillation pattern at the two frequencies ($\omega_1,\omega_2$) in which the cylinders are actuated. Higher orders oscillate at frequencies which are combinations of the actuation frequencies, where the first-order includes the $2\omega_1,2\omega_2,\omega_1+\omega_2$, and $\omega_1-\omega_2$ harmonics. For in-phase actuation with $\omega_1= \omega_2$, the deflection dynamics are identical to an isolated cylinder with a modified Sperm number. For configurations with $\omega_1\approx \omega_2$, the $\omega_1-\omega_2$ mode represents the dominant first-order interaction effect due to significantly smaller effective Sperm number. Experiments are conducted to verify and illustrate the theoretical predictions.