Three-dimensional numerical simulations are used to study the effect of unsteady swinging and tumbling motion on the rheology of a dilute suspension of oblate-shaped elastic capsules. Unlike a suspension of initially spherical capsules undergoing the steady tank-treading motion for which the rheology is constant in time, the suspension of non-spherical capsules is time-dependent due to the unsteady capsule motion. In a simple shear flow, the non-spherical capsules undergo a transition from the tank-treading/swinging to the tumbling motion with a reduction in the shear rate or an increase in the ratio of the internal to external fluid viscosities. We find that the time-averaged rheology obtained for the non-spherical capsules undergoing the unsteady motion is qualitatively similar to that obtained for the spherical capsules undergoing the steady tank-treading motion, and that the tank-treading-to-tumbling transition has only a marginal effect. The time-averaged rheology exhibits a shear viscosity minimum when the capsules are in a swinging motion at high shear rates but not at low shear rates. This is a remarkable departure from the behaviour of a vesicle suspension which exhibits a shear viscosity minimum at the point of transition. We find that the shear viscosity in a capsule suspension can decrease as well as increase with increasing viscosity ratio during both tank-treading and tumbling motions, while that of a vesicle suspension always decreases in tank-treading motion and increases in tumbling motion. We then seek to connect the time-dependent rheology with the time-dependent membrane tension, capsule orientation, deformation and tank-treading velocity. At low shear rates, the numerical results exhibit a similar trend to that predicted by analytical theory for rigid ellipsoids undergoing tumbling motion. The trend differs during swinging motion due to the periodic deformation and time-dependent variation of the membrane stress. The elastic component of the shear stress is minimum when the capsules are maximally compressed, and is maximum when the capsules are maximally elongated. In contrast, the viscous component is related to the periodic variation of the tank-treading velocity synchronized with the swinging motion, and the rate of capsule elongation or compression. The swinging or tumbling velocity makes no contribution to the time-dependent rheology.

The locomotion of a body through an inviscid incompressible fluid, such that the flow remains irrotational everywhere, is known to depend on inertial forces and on both the shape and the mass distribution of the body. In this paper we consider the influence of fluid viscosity on such inertial modes of locomotion. In particular we consider a free body of variable shape and study the centre-of-mass and centre-of-volume variations caused by a shifting mass distribution. We call this recoil locomotion. Numerical solutions of a finite body indicate that the mechanism is ineffective in Stokes flow but that viscosity can significantly increase the swimming speed above the inviscid value once Reynolds numbers are in the intermediate range 50–300. To study the problem analytically, a model which is an analogue of Taylor's swimming sheet is introduced. The model admits analysis at fixed, arbitrarily large Reynolds number for deformations of sufficiently small amplitude. The analysis confirms the significant increase of swimming velocity above the inviscid value at intermediate Reynolds numbers.

Single-dielectric barrier discharge (SDBD) plasma actuators have gained a great deal of world-wide interest for flow-control applications. With this has come the need for flow-interaction models of plasma actuators that can be used in computational flow simulations. SDBD plasma actuators consist of two electrodes: one uncovered and exposed to the air and the other encapsulated by a dielectric material. An AC electric potential is supplied to the electrodes. When the AC potential is large enough, the air in the region over the encapsulated electrode ionizes. The ionized air in the presence of the electric field results in a space–time dependent body force vector field. The body force is the mechanism for flow control. This study describes a semi-empirical model that has been developed to capture the dynamic nature of the local air ionization and time-dependent body force vector distribution. Validation of the model includes comparisons to experimentally measured space–time charge distribution and the time-resolved and time-averaged body force. Two flow simulations are then used to further validate the SDBD plasma actuator model. These involved an impulsively started plasma actuator in still air, and the flow around a circular cylinder in which plasma actuators were used to suppress the Karman vortex street. In both cases, the simulations agreed well with the experiments.

The velocity field around a vibrating cantilever plate was experimentally investigated using phase-locked particle image velocimetry. Experiments were performed at Reynolds numbers of Reh = 101, 126 and 146 based on the tip amplitude and the speed of the cantilever. The averaged vector fields indicate a pseudo-jet flow, which is dominated by vortical structures. These vortical structures are identified and characterized using the continuous wavelet transform. Three-dimensional flow features are also clearly revealed by this technique. Furthermore, proper orthogonal decomposition was used to investigate regions of vortex production and breakdown. The results show clearly that the investigation of phase-averaged data hides several key flow features. Careful data post-processing is therefore necessary to investigate the flow around the vibrating cantilever and similar highly transient periodic flows.