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arXiv · 1609.06453

Tumbling of a Brownian particle in an extensional flow

Emmanuel Lance Christopher VI Medillo Plan·Dario Vincenzi
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Abstract

The phenomenon of tumbling of microscopic objects is commonly associated with shear flows. We address the question of whether tumbling can also occur in stretching-dominated flows. To answer this, we study the dynamics of a semi-flexible trumbbell in a planar extensional velocity field. We show that the trumbbell undergoes a random tumbling-through-folding motion. The probability distribution of long tumbling times is exponential with a time scale exponentially increasing with the Weissenberg number.

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Emmanuel Lance Christopher VI Medillo Plan, Dario Vincenzi. 2016-09-22. Tumbling of a Brownian particle in an extensional flow. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspa.2016.0226

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