Abstract
Transport of cells in fluid flow plays a critical role in many physiological processes of the human body. Recent developments of in vitro techniques have enabled the understanding of cellular dynamics in laboratory conditions. However, it is challenging to obtain precise characteristics of cellular dynamics using experimental method alone, especially under in vivo conditions. This challenge motivates new developments of computational methods to provide complementary data that experimental techniques are not able to provide. Since there exists a large disparity in spatial and temporal scales in this problem, which requires a large number of cells to be simulated, it is highly desirable to develop an efficient numerical method for the interaction of cells and fluid flows. In this work, a new Fluid-Structure Interaction formulation is proposed based on the use of hybrid continuum-particle approach, which can resolve local dynamics of cells while providing large-scale flow patterns in the vascular vessel. Here, the Dissipative Particle Dynamics (DPD) model for the cellular membrane is used in conjunction with the Immersed Boundary Method (IBM) for the fluid plasma. Our results show that the new formulation is highly efficient in computing the deformation of cells within fluid flow while satisfying the incompressibility constraints of the fluid. We demonstrate that it is possible to couple the DPD with the IBM to simulate the complex dynamics of Red Blood Cells (RBC) such as parachuting. Our key observation is that the proposed coupling enables the simulation of RBC dynamics in realistic arterioles while ensuring the incompressibility constraint for fluid plasma. Therefore, the proposed method allows an accurate estimation of fluid shear stresses on the surface of simulated RBC. Our results suggest that this hybrid methodology can be extended for a variety of cells in physiological conditions.
Highlights
Dynamics of biological cells in fluid flows are important in many areas of bio-engineering [1]
The dynamics of Red Blood Cell (RBC) are investigated under different conditions: (a) Dynamic stretching under a pulling force; (b) relaxing in a uniform flow; (c) deforming under shear flow in a confined tube; and (d) moving through a curved tube
These tests will demonstrate the capability of the Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) methodology in modeling the interaction of a RBC with fluid flows
Summary
Dynamics of biological cells in fluid flows are important in many areas of bio-engineering [1]. Human cells are comprised of many compartments such as bi-lipid membrane, cytoplasm, nucleus, and others [2]. Special cells such as the Red Blood Cell (RBC), White Blood Cell (WBC), and platelet, are contained mostly of a thin membrane and cytosol fluid [3]. RBC, WBC, and platelet [4] are the main components of human blood. Understanding their dynamics could lead to new innovations in many engineering areas such as biomedical devices [5,6], cancer biology [7,8], or drug delivery [9]. Modeling the dynamics of these special cells in fluid flow is the focus of the current work
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