与加载速率相关的细菌鞭毛相变和运动的多尺度问题

The bacterial flagellum, working as a propeller, plays a very important role in the bacterial movement. Recent experiments show that the flagellar filament can undergo a cyclic phase transition under the viscous fluid flowing, now we are working on the martensite phase transition of bacterial flagellar filament under the support of the NSFC. Firstly we made mechanical analysis of the phase transition experiment of the flagellar filament, and got its transition rule; based on this we establish the theoretical model to describe filament’s phase transition under the Kirchhoff rod theory and Ginzberg-Landau phase transition theory, and got the loading (force and displacement) conditions of phase transition instability through the stability analysis; finally based on non-local and non-convex continuum modeling we use finite element method to simulate its phase transition process and successfully capture the main features of flagellar phase transition, such as two-phase coexistence with an interface of finite thickness, phase nucleation and phase growth with interface propagation. Moreover, we find that flagellar phase transition and motion closely relate to the velocity of viscous fluid. The key is the multi-scale problem in the phase transition and motion of flagella. We will further study this problem based on the previous work. Here multi-scale effects include both multi-scale size effect and multi-scale time effect. Since flagella motion involves two time scales: one is characteristic loading time or loading frequency, the other is the viscous time of fluid-solid relative motion. These two time scales have relation with flagellar geometry, at the same time the completion of two time scales leads to a new internal length scale (the domain spacing). Considering both multi-scale of size and time effects, the concrete content of our analysis are as following: phase transition load criteria and motion of flagella; the microstructure domain spacing of the new phase during the phase transition; the stress hysteresis and damping capacity of bacterial flagella. After study, our simulation can predict behaviors of bacterial flagella in different environments (of different fluid viscosity and different flow speed). Although there are limited experiments (because of the difficult experimental techniques), our theoretical study can help get general relations for various bacteria in various ambient.

鞭毛作为细菌运动的推进器，在细菌运动中起重要作用。实验发现细菌鞭毛在粘性流体作用下会发生马氏体相变, 目前正在对其进行研究。我们以实验分析为基础，建立相变模型描述鞭毛相变过程并进行稳定性分析；在非局部和非凸连续介质力学基础上用有限元法对实验现象进行模拟，描述其相变典型特征（形核、长大和两相共存）。进一步实验发现鞭毛相变和运动跟粘性流体流速密切相关，其科学问题为鞭毛相变和运动的多尺度问题，课题将就此展开研究。这里的多尺度涉及空间多尺度和时间多尺度，两个时间尺度：一、加载特征时间尺度（加载率）；二、鞭毛与粘性液体间运动产生的粘性时间尺度。这两个时间尺度除与鞭毛几何尺度有相互作用外，两个时间尺度的相互竞争还会引起一个新的空间涌现尺度（相变带之间的间距）。内容包括多尺度效应下：相变载荷条件和其运动规律，相变过程中形核微结构、应力滞后和能量耗散。通过以上工作，预测鞭毛在不同粘性流体中相变和运动规律。