Steering microscopic particles in viscous flows via shape and deformability

Time: Wednesday, December 1, 2021 - 2:30pm - 3:30pm
Type: Seminar Series
Presenter: Anke Lindner, Paris University
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Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science Seminar Series

Seminars are held weekly on Wednesday at 2:30 PM. Please contact Diana Qiu, Amir Pahlavan, or Rebecca Kramer-Bottiglio with speaker suggestions.

December 1, 2021

"Steering microscopic particles in viscous flows via shape and deformability"
Anke Lindner
Paris University

Abstract: Understanding and controlling the transport of microscopic particles in viscous flows stems from the fundamental question of fluid-structure interactions but has also important implications for separation processes or bacterial contamination. Using recent microfabrication techniques, we produce a variety of microscopic particles and control precisely their shape and material properties. Investigating the transport dynamics of these particles in representative microfluidic flows we demonstrate how shape, mechanical properties or even activity govern particle trajectories. Combining our experimental findings with numerical and theoretical modeling performed by our collaborators we elucidate in detail the role of particle symmetry, chirality, deformability or activity.

Short Bio: Anke Lindner is a professor at the physics department of the University of Paris, France. Her research group is part of the PMMH lab at the Ecole Supérieure de Physique et Chimie (ESPCI-PSL), Paris. Her research topics can best be summarized as “flow of complex fluids” and cover a broad range of topics from rheology of granular or active suspensions, to adhesion of soft viscoelastic materials and more recently fluid structure interactions, microfluidics and elastic flow instabilities. She has recently been awarded an ERC consolidator grant and became a fellow of the APS-DFD in November 2019. She is the Maurice Couette award winner of the French Society of Rheology 2019 and received the silver medal of CNRS in 2021.