A limiting model for a low Reynolds number swimmer with N passive elastic arms

Abstract

We consider a low Reynolds number artificial swimmer that consists of an active arm followed by $N$ passive springs separated by spheres. This setup generalizes an approach proposed in Montino and DeSimone, Eur. Phys. J. E, vol. 38, 2015. We further study the limit as the number of springs tends to infinity and the parameters are scaled conveniently, and provide a rigorous proof of the convergence of the discrete model to the continuous one. Several numerical experiments show the performances of the displacement in terms of the frequency or the amplitude of the oscillation of the active arm.