We employ the immersed boundary method to take a numerical study of how channel confinement affects the behavior of undulatory swimmers in the nematic liquid crystal. Two asymmetrical strokes are investigated in this work, where the kicker exhibits larger undulations at the tail, whereas the burrower possesses larger undulations at the head. The results show that the width of the channel plays a dominant role in the swimming mechanism. As the width decreases, both swimmers experience an enhancement in swimming speed and efficiency when centered in the channel, accompanied by more input power consumption. However, in excessively narrow channels, their speeds decline as well as the lower efficiency, due to the strong wall effects. Additionally, they exhibit different transient responses in the nematic channel. The burrower exhibits stronger wall adhesion, whereas the kicker demonstrates a greater tendency to escape from the wall, especially under a large initial alignment angle with the nematic director.
Quan et al. (Wed,) studied this question.
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