Loughborough academic to model ‘living’ micro-machines

The five-year project will combine two areas, colloidal self-assembly and active liquids, using computational simulations on Loughborough’s high-performance computers.

Dr Tyler Shendruk is a member of the interdisciplinary centre for mathematical modelling in the Mathematical Sciences department. This is a new group “applying computational physics methods to understanding different dynamic systems than physicists would usually consider,” he said.

Particles take rough with the smooth when moving in liquid suspensions

In the swim

Colloids, suspensions of tiny particles in a fluid, can act as building blocks for more complex structures but need to be brought together to “self-assemble”. In liquid crystals, fluids composed of rod-like molecules that lie in straight lines, colloids self-assemble into chains, zigzag lines and lattice structures. These are known as colloidal liquid crystals. However, they are limited to simple, static structures.

Dr Shendruk will investigate a new class of “active” liquid crystals. These are typically biological, and are able to store energy and transmute it into spontaneous mechanical motion (a process used in intracellular transport, for example). An example is fluid extracted from cell cytoplasm and purified, or a dense suspension of bacteria. Their internal motion can be used to model the dynamics of herding sheep or shoals of fish.