Flow-Induced Buckling of Elastic Microfilaments with Non-Uniform Bending Stiffness

TL;DR

This study investigates how non-uniform bending stiffness in elastic microfilaments affects buckling behavior and fluid interactions, revealing significant impacts on stability and rheology in biological and synthetic systems.

Contribution

It introduces a combined theoretical and simulation framework to analyze buckling of non-uniform elastic filaments, a novel approach in understanding their stability and fluid interactions.

Findings

Buckling is more pronounced in regions of reduced rigidity.

Non-uniform stiffness alters the particle stress and rheological response.

Mode shapes match predictions from linear stability analysis.

Abstract

Buckling plays a critical role in the transport and dynamics of elastic microfilaments in Stokesian fluids. However, previous work has only considered filaments with homogeneous structural properties. Filament backbone stiffness can be non-uniform in many biological systems like microtubules, where the association and disassociation of proteins can lead to spatial and temporal changes into structure. The consequences of such non-uniformities in the configurational stability and transport of these fibers are yet unknown. Here, we use slender-body theory and Euler-Bernoulli elasticity coupled with various non-uniform bending rigidity profiles to quantify this buckling instability using linear stability analysis and Brownian simulations. In shear flows, we observe more pronounced buckling in areas of reduced rigidity in our simulations. These areas of marked deformations give rise to differences in the particle extra stress, indicating a nontrivial rheological response due to the presence of these filaments. The fundamental mode shapes arising from each rigidity profile are consistent with the predictions from our linear stability analysis. Collectively, these results suggest that non-uniform bending rigidity can drastically alter fluid-structure interactions in physiologically relevant settings, providing a foundation to elucidate the complex interplay between hydrodynamics and the structural properties of biopolymers.