Apparatus for modeling peristaltic pumping in biophysical flows

Abstract

In this study, we present a novel experimental apparatus, its construction, data acquisition methodology, and validation for the study of peristaltic flows. The apparatus consists of a series of stepper motor actuators, which deflect a deformable membrane to produce peristaltic flows. We show that this apparatus design has significant advantages over previous designs that have been used to study peristaltic flows by offering a much wider range of modeling capabilities. Comparisons between the capabilities of our apparatus and previous ones show our apparatus spanning a larger range of wavelength λ, wave speed c, amplitude A, and wave shapes (i.e., the apparatus is not constrained to nondispersive waves or to a sinusoidal shape). We provide details on the experimental design and construction for ease of reconstruction to the reader. The apparatus capabilities are validated for a large parameter range by comparing experimental measurements to analytic results from Ibanez et al. [1] for high Reynolds number (Re > 1), and Jaffrin and Shapiro [2] for low Reynolds number (Re < 1) applications. We show that the apparatus is useful for biophysical peristaltic studies and has potential applications in other types of studies.

A bioinspired apparatus for modeling peristaltic pumping in biophysical flows

“…It is our hope this design will see future use beyond our specific interests. Given the ability to span large parameter sets and arbitrary waveforms we see other research groups can use the tools we provide (our design and software [17,18]) for the validation of their own numerical and analytic studies which have not seen experimental results, such as the ones references in section 1.…”

“…The stepper motors must rotate in a specific manner to replicate the desired wave wall deformation as closely as possible. The MATLAB code that determines this motion is accessible in the following [17]. In the MAT-LAB code, the desired wall deformation is specified as a function of x and t, for example sin(αx − ωt).…”