Peristaltic Elastic Instability in an Inflated Cylindrical Channel

Nontawit Cheewaruangroj, Karolis Leonavicius, Shankar Srinivas, and John S. Biggins
Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 068003 – Published 13 February 2019
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Abstract

A long cylindrical cavity through a soft solid forms a soft microfluidic channel, or models a vascular capillary. We observe experimentally that, when such a channel bears a pressurized fluid, it first dilates homogeneously, but then becomes unstable to a peristaltic elastic instability. We combine theory and numerics to fully characterize the instability in a channel with initial radius a through an incompressible bulk neo-Hookean solid with shear modulus μ. We show instability occurs supercritically with wavelength 12.278a when the cavity pressure exceeds 2.052μ. In finite solids, the wavelength for peristalsis lengthens, with peristalsis ultimately being replaced by a long-wavelength bulging instability in thin-walled cylinders. Peristalsis persists in Gent strain-stiffening materials, provided the material can sustain extension by more than a factor of 6. Although naively a pressure driven failure mode of soft channels, the instability also offers a route to fabricate periodically undulating channels, producing, e.g., waveguides with photonic or phononic stop bands.

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  • Received 8 May 2018
  • Revised 21 November 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.122.068003

© 2019 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Polymers & Soft MatterPhysics of Living SystemsFluid Dynamics

Authors & Affiliations

Nontawit Cheewaruangroj

  • Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, 19 JJ Thomson Avenue, Cambridge CB3 0HE, United Kingdom

Karolis Leonavicius and Shankar Srinivas

  • Department of Physiology Anatomy and Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3QX, United Kingdom

John S. Biggins

  • Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1PZ, United Kingdom

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Issue

Vol. 122, Iss. 6 — 15 February 2019

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