Experimental study on helical propulsion system of artificial nanoswimmer: Low reynolds number

Abstract

Development in the field of nanotechnology makes possible the production of nanorobots and its usage inside the human body for various biomedical applications. Introducing a nanorobot inside a human body faces various challenges. One of the major challenges is its propulsion mechanism. Since the flow regime is of low Reynolds number, normal propulsion systems would find itself impossible to produce net forward thrust in such media. A rigid helix is found to produce thrust force and is a perfect place to start with in low Reynolds number propulsion. In this paper, a set of helical flagella has been fabricated in macro domain and the effect of change of wavelength, wire diameter and helix diameter is investigated on the thrust force produced by rigid helical filament using Resistive Force Theory.