Sensing Particulate Flows Using Arrays of Passive Artificial Cilia

Biological passive cilia serve the function of sensory organelles in many animal cells and microorganisms. Through computational analysis, we attempt to grasp the hydrodynamic mechanisms governing the sensing capabilities of cilia arrays exposed to particulate flow. We model the cilia and particle deformations using the Lattice Spring Method and couple them with fluid flow using Peskin's Immersed Boundary Method. Numerical simulations are performed to mimic the hydrodynamic interaction of non-motile biological cilia with soft particles. The tip deflections of cilia are perturbed due to the oscillatory motion of elliptical particles with varying sizes and aspect ratios, giving us insights into its shape. The motion of the cilia tips in the wake of the particle clearly shows distinguishing variations with changes in the shape of the particle, independent of the particle's size. We also show that cilia tip deflections can be used to sense particle locations, thus justifying the potential of artificial cilia as sensors of particulate flows.