Abstract
We perform simulations of suspension of capsules with nucleus in shear flow. Every capsule is modeled as a neo-Hookean hyperelastic membrane enclosing a rigid particle with radius equal to the half capsule radius. The rheology of the suspensions is related to the capsule deformation and orientation when varying the membrane stiffness and capsule volume fraction and compared to the dynamics of capsules without nucleus.
Highlights
The rheological properties of capsule suspensions have great importance in medical applications, as well as in process industry
The dynamics of malaria-infected red blood cells have been studied in Ref. [17] by means of numerical simulations; the results show a large increase of the relative viscosity in a microcircular channel with a diameter of 12 μm in the presence of a sick cell in the trophozoite stage, where the size of the nucleus is of the order of 20% of the cell
The ratio between the nucleus and the undeformed capsule diameter will be kept constant while examining the role of the capillary number, Reynolds number, and volume fraction on the relative viscosity, first normal stress difference, mean deformation, mean orientation, and elastic energy of simple and nucleated capsule suspensions; in particular, the relationship between the rheological properties and the deformation and orientation angle of the capsules will be discussed
Summary
The rheological properties of capsule suspensions have great importance in medical applications, as well as in process industry. With regard to numerical studies, a coupled lattice-Boltzmann and finite-element method was proposed by MacMeccan et al [6] for the simulation of deformable particles, enabling efficient simulations of suspensions at high volume fractions These authors consider initially spherical and biconcave capsule suspensions at 40% volume fraction, and they report a significantly lower viscosity for initially spherical capsule suspensions, both suspensions displaying shear-thinning behavior. The ratio between the nucleus and the undeformed capsule diameter will be kept constant while examining the role of the capillary number, Reynolds number, and volume fraction on the relative viscosity, first normal stress difference, mean deformation, mean orientation, and elastic energy of simple and nucleated capsule suspensions; in particular, the relationship between the rheological properties and the deformation and orientation angle of the capsules will be discussed
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