Tag: Propulsion
Reciprocal flapping produces motion in viscoelastic granular hydrogels
What the study found A scallop-like swimmer with reciprocally flapping wings could move through a nearly frictionless, cohesive granular medium made of hydrogel spheres when its flapping frequency matched the material's inverse relaxation time. The swimmer moved in the opposite direction from how it moved in a cohesion-free granular material of hard plastic spheres. Why…