| Issue |
EPL
Volume 91, Number 1, July 2010
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Article Number | 14001 | |
| Number of page(s) | 6 | |
| Section | Electromagnetism, Optics, Acoustics, Heat Transfer, Classical Mechanics, and Fluid Dynamics | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/91/14001 | |
| Published online | 19 July 2010 | |
Migration of semiflexible polymers in microcapillary flow
Institut für Festkörperforschung, Forschungszentrum Jülich - 52425 Jülich, Germany, EU
Received:
17
February
2010
Accepted:
16
June
2010
The non-equilibrium structural and dynamical properties of a semiflexible polymer confined in a cylindrical microchannel and exposed to a Poiseuille flow is studied by mesoscale hydrodynamic simulations. For a polymer with a length half of its persistence length, large variations in orientation and conformations are found as a function of radial distance and flow strength. In particular, the polymer exhibits U-shaped conformations near the channel center. Hydrodynamic interactions lead to strong cross-streamline migration. Outward migration is governed by the polymer orientation and the corresponding anisotropy in its diffusivity. Strong tumbling motion is observed, with a tumbling time which exhibits the same dependence on Peclet number as a polymer in shear flow.
PACS: 47.61.-k – Micro- and nano- scale flow phenomena / 83.10.Rs – Computational simulation of molecular and particle dynamics / 87.15.-v – Biomolecules: structure and physical properties
© EPLA, 2010
Current usage metrics show cumulative count of Article Views (full-text article views including HTML views, PDF and ePub downloads, according to the available data) and Abstracts Views on Vision4Press platform.
Data correspond to usage on the plateform after 2015. The current usage metrics is available 48-96 hours after online publication and is updated daily on week days.
Initial download of the metrics may take a while.