Syllabus
Introduction: Soft matter, microscopic and macroscopic description of soft matter, fundamental transport equations and boundary conditions. Physicochemical Hydrodynamics of Colloids: Hydrodynamics of colloidal particles, general solution of Stokes equations in spherical coordinates, translation and rotation of colloidal particles under external flows/fields, reciprocal theorem, Faxen’s law, particle-particle and particle-wall interactions, phoretic motion of particles, colloid stability, Brownian motion and fluctuations. Physicochemical Hydrodynamics of Droplets: Surface tension, dynamic conditions at fluid-fluid interface, hydrodynamic transport of droplets, thermocapillary transport of droplets, surfactant-laden droplets, electrohydrodynamics of droplets, phoretic motion of droplets. Soft Matter Rheology: Formulation of constitutive laws, viscous non-Newtonian fluids, viscoelastic fluids, non-Newtonian flow examples, rheology of dilute suspension of colloidal particles, rheology of dilute emulsion of droplets, liquid crystals, microrheology. Hydrodynamics of Biological Active Matter: Fluid dynamics in biology and biological locomotion, self-propulsion mechanisms, mathematical modelling of swimming of microorganisms, fundamental solutions of Stokes equations using singularity method, Taylor swimming sheet, squirmer model, swimming cells in flows, microorganisms exposed to external stimulus. Hydrodynamics of Artificial Active Matter: Janus colloids, phoretic active matter, active particles and active droplets, recent development in microrobots and nanorobots.
Texts/References: