Simulating Colloid Motion in Spinning Suspension: Internal Dynamics in Orbital Shaker

Abstract

Colloid suspensions in the form of mammalian or bacterial cell mixtures in orbital shakers are commonly encountered in biomedical research. An understanding of particle motion in these conditions would provide insight into bulk colloid behavior and distribution under short and long timeframes. Such data can be used to supplement and clarify existing concepts of biological phenomena encountered in the laboratory setting. It can also aid biomedical researchers in experiment design and data interpretation. We present a MATLAB based simulation of colloid motion under rotary agitation. Our simulation setup is modular and therefore designed to act as a scaffold that can be customized to simulate different mammalian, bacterial, or particle properties in liquid suspension.