Simulation of Planar Wave Flagellar Propulsion of Nanorobots using COMSOL

N. Londhe, R. Majumdar, J. Rathore, and N. Sharma
Dept. of Mechanical Engineering
Birla Institute of Technology and Science
Pilani, Rajasthan
India
Published in 2011

Nanorobots may be used in the advancement of medical technology, healthcare, and environment monitoring by swimming in biological fluids flowing in narrow channels of a few hundred nanometers in the area of bio-medical engineering.

The pronounced effects in nanometer scale such as increased apparent viscosity and low Reynolds number make the designing of propulsion mechanism a challenging task. Prominent modes of flagellar locomotion in micro-sized biological organisms are by generating planar waves or through helical rotation.

The present work attempts to numerically simulate the shape form of the tail of a swimming nanorobot by solving the governing equation of its flagellar hydro-dynamics. It corroborates with the analytical studies aimed at the modeling of Nanorobot dynamics thorough planar wave propagation.