We propose an extension of the anisotropic interaction model which allows for collision avoidance in pairwise interactions by a rotation of forces (Totzeck (2020) Kinet. Relat. Models 13(6), 1219–1242.) by including the agents’ body size. The influence of the body size on the self-organisation of the agents in channel and crossing scenarios as well as the fundamental diagram is studied. Since the model is stated as a coupled system of ordinary differential equations, we are able to give a rigorous well-posedness analysis. Then we state a parameter calibration problem that involves data from real experiments. We prove the existence of a minimiser and derive the corresponding first-order optimality conditions. With the help of these conditions, we propose a gradient descent algorithm based on mini-batches of the data set. We employ the proposed algorithm to fit the parameter of the collision avoidance and the strength parameters of the interaction forces to given real data from experiments. The results underpin the feasibility of the method.

We analyse a nonlinear partial differential equation system describing the motion of a microswimmer in a nematic liquid crystal environment. For the microswimmer’s motility, the squirmer model is used in which self-propulsion enters the model through the slip velocity on the microswimmer’s surface. The liquid crystal is described using the well-established Beris–Edwards formulation. In previous computational studies, it was shown that the squirmer, regardless of its initial configuration, eventually orients itself either parallel or perpendicular to the preferred orientation dictated by the liquid crystal. Furthermore, the corresponding solution of the coupled nonlinear system converges to a steady state. In this work, we rigorously establish the existence of steady state and also the finite-time existence for the time-dependent problem in a periodic domain. Finally, we will use a two-scale asymptotic expansion to derive a homogenised model for the collective swimming of squirmers as they reach their steady-state orientation and speed.

In numerical linear stability investigations, the rates of change of the kinetic and thermal energy of the perturbation flow are often used to identify the dominant mechanisms by which kinetic or thermal energy is exchanged between the basic and the perturbation flow. Extending the conventional energy analysis for a single-phase Boussinesq fluid, the energy budgets of arbitrary infinitesimal perturbations to the basic two-phase liquid–gas flow are derived for an axisymmetric thermocapillary bridge when the material parameters in both phases depend on the temperature. This allows identifying individual transport terms and assessing their contributions to the instability if the basic flow and the critical mode are evaluated at criticality. The full closed-form energy budgets of linear modes have been derived for thermocapillary two-phase flow taking into account the temperature dependence of all thermophysical parameters. The influence of different approximations to the temperature dependence on the linear stability boundary of the axisymmetric flow in thermocapillary liquid bridges is tested regarding their accuracy. The general mechanism of symmetry breaking turns out to be very robust.

Being able to characterise objects at low frequencies, but in situations where the modelling error in the eddy current approximation of the Maxwell system becomes large, is important for improving current metal detection technologies. Importantly, the modelling error becomes large as the frequency increases, but the accuracy of the eddy current model also depends on the object topology and on its materials, with the error being much larger for certain geometries compared to others of the same size and materials. Additionally, the eddy current model breaks down at much smaller frequencies for highly magnetic conducting materials compared to non-permeable objects (with similar conductivities, sizes and shapes) and, hence, characterising small magnetic objects made of permeable materials using the eddy current at typical frequencies of operation for a metal detector is not always possible. To address this, we derive a new asymptotic expansion for permeable highly conducting objects that is valid for small objects and holds not only for frequencies where the eddy current model is valid but also for situations where the eddy current modelling error becomes large and applying the eddy approximation would be invalid. The leading-order term we derive leads to new forms of object characterisations in terms of polarizability tensor object descriptions where the coefficients can be obtained from solving vectorial transmission problems. We expect these new characterisations to be important when considering objects at greater stand-off distance from the coils, which is important for safety critical applications, such as the identification of landmines, unexploded ordnance and concealed weapons. We also expect our results to be important when characterising artefacts of archaeological and forensic significance at greater depths than the eddy current model allows and to have further applications parking sensors and improving the detection of hidden, out-of-sight, metallic objects.

A porous material that has been contaminated with a hazardous chemical agent is typically decontaminated by applying a cleanser solution to the surface and allowing the cleanser to react into the porous material, neutralising the agent. The agent and cleanser are often immiscible fluids and so, if the porous material is initially saturated with agent, a reaction front develops with the decontamination reaction occurring at this interface between the fluids. We investigate the effect of different initial agent configurations within the pore space on the decontamination process. Specifically, we compare the decontamination of a material initially saturated by the agent with the situation when, initially, the agent only coats the walls of the pores (referred to as the ‘agent-on-walls’ case). In previous work (Luckins et al., European Journal of Applied Mathematics, 31(5):782–805, 2020), we derived homogenised models for both of these decontamination scenarios, and in this paper we explore the solutions of these two models. We find that, for an identical initial volume of agent, the decontamination time is generally much faster for the agent-on-walls case compared with the initially saturated case, since the surface area on which the reaction can occur is greater. However for sufficiently deep spills of contaminant, or sufficiently slow reaction rates, decontamination in the agent-on-walls scenario can be slower. We also show that, in the limit of a dilute cleanser with a deep initial agent spill, the agent-on-walls model exhibits behaviour akin to a Stefan problem of the same form as that arising in the initially saturated model. The decontamination time is shown to decrease with both the applied cleanser concentration and the rate of the chemical reaction. However, increasing the cleanser concentration is also shown to result in lower decontamination efficiency, with an increase in the amount of cleanser chemical that is wasted.