Orateur
Description
Active fluids are known to sustain fluid flows in time without any external forcing. In porous media, active suspensions such as active filaments or microtubules were shown to enhance flow rate, breaking Darcy’s law and inducing mixing without external forces$^{1–3}$. Here, we propose a computational study of dense bacterial suspension flows in porous media. Bacterial suspensions are a class of naturally occuring active fluid. Depending on the cell density and activity, they
can display self sustained coherent or chaotic flows in confined environments$^4$. We use a continuum framework derived from Fokker–Planck descriptions of bacterial suspensions confined in a channel with different pore scale geometries. This approach allows us to quantitatively map the bacterial suspension mass flow rate as a function of pressure gradient,
pore configuration and activity. Potential applications include the use of active bacterial suspensions and superfluids in
bioremediation applicaitons.
1 Keogh et al. Phys. Rev. Lett., 132, 2024.
2 de Anna et al., Nat. Phys., 17, , 2021.
3 Vélez-Cerón et al. , PNAS, vol. 122, 2025.
4 Wioland et al., Phys. Rev. Lett., 2013.