Microfluidics: Purely Elastic Fluid–Structure Interactions in Microfluidics: Implications for Mucociliary Flows (Small 9/2020)

In article number 1903872, Amy Q. Shen and co-workers experimentally study the purely-elastic flow-induced vibrations of cantilevered glass microcylinders due to a viscoelastic flow instability. Above a critical Weissenberg number, a single cantilevered cylinder undergoes complex 2D oscillations. The oscillations of two cylinders aligned along the middle of the channel are found to be highly correlated in time. This may have implications toward understanding cilia–mucus interactions.