Capsules In Simple Shear Flow Research Articles

Hydrodynamic interactions and membrane damage for a pair of microcapsules in shear flow: Effect of membrane mechanical properties

We model the hydrodynamic interaction of two equal size capsules in simple shear flow. The capsules may have different mechanical membrane properties. The results are analyzed in terms of a macro scale model of capsule membrane damage. We show how the interaction between two capsules with a membrane rigidity mismatch may lead to damage of the more deformable capsule even when the base flow strength is below the damage threshold of both capsules. We provide charts of the peak deformation energy density in the two membranes as a function of the flow strength and the ratio of the elastic rigidity of the two capsules. Given a damage criterion, those charts can be used to determine when flow-induced damage will occur in a suspension of capsules with a distribution of mechanical properties.

Isogeometric boundary element analysis of creasing of capsule in simple shear flow

Wrinkling and creasing of an elastic membrane are post-buckling processes induced by in-plane compression. When a hyperelastic capsule is suspended in a simple shear flow, its membrane forms several wavy patterns. To elucidate the post-buckling behavior of a capsule in a Stokes shear flow, we investigated the effects of the shear rate and membrane thickness on capsule deformation by performing numerical analysis to capture the wrinkling and creasing of the capsule membrane. The deformation of the capsule was formulated based on the Kirchhoff–Love shell theory and the Stokes flow was calculated using the boundary integral equation. The capsule shape was represented by a T-spline surface. The isogeometric boundary element analysis showed that the capsule in the shear flow formed wrinkles and creases. Whereas wrinkling occurred at low shear rates, both wrinkling and creasing occurred at high shear rates depending on the membrane thickness. Based on the geometrical consistency of the capsule surface, we suggest that the deformation type can be determined by mechanical and geometrical effects of the membrane thickness, that is, the bending rigidity and ease of self-contact, respectively. This approach will be useful for investigating the geometrical consistency for further understanding the post-buckling behavior of capsules in Stokes flows.

Dynamics of deformable straight and curved prolate capsules in simple shear flow.

This work investigates the motion of neutrally-buoyant, slightly deformable straight and curved prolate fluid-filled capsules in unbounded simple shear flow at zero Reynolds number using direct simulations. The curved capsules serve as a model for the typical crescent-shaped sickle red blood cells in sickle cell disease (SCD). The effects of deformability and curvature on the dynamics are revealed. We show that with low deformability, straight prolate spheroidal capsules exhibit tumbling in the shear plane as their unique asymptotically stable orbit. This result contrasts with that for rigid spheroids, where infinitely many neutrally stable Jeffery orbits exist. The dynamics of curved prolate capsules are more complicated due to a combined effect of deformability and curvature. At short times, depending on the initial orientation, slightly deformable curved prolate capsules exhibit either a Jeffery-like motion such as tumbling or kayaking, or a non-Jeffery-like behavior in which the director (end-to-end vector) of the capsule crosses the shear-gradient plane back and forth. At long times, however, a Jeffery-like quasiperiodic orbit is taken regardless of the initial orientation. We further show that the average of the long-time trajectory can be well approximated using the analytical solution for Jeffery orbits with an effective orbit constant C eff and aspect ratio ℓ eff. These parameters are useful for characterizing the dynamics of curved capsules as a function of given deformability and curvature. As the capsule becomes more deformable or curved, C eff decreases, indicating a shift of the orbit towards log-rolling motion, while ℓ eff increases weakly as the degree of curvature increases but shows negligible dependency on deformability. These features are not changed substantially as the viscosity ratio between the inner and outer fluids is changed from 1 to 5. As cell deformability, cell shape, and cell-cell interactions are all pathologically altered in blood disorders such as SCD, these results will have clear implications on improving our understanding of the pathophysiology of hematologic disease.

Dynamics of nonspherical compound capsules in simple shear flow

The dynamics of an initially ellipsoidal compound capsule in a simple shear flow is investigated numerically using a three-dimensional front-tracking finite-difference model. Membrane bending resistance is included based on Helfrich’s energy function besides the resistances against shear deformation and area dilatation governed by the constitutive law of Skalak et al. In this paper, we focus specifically on how the presence of a spherical inner capsule and its size affects the characteristics and transition of various dynamical states of nonspherical compound capsules (i.e., the outer capsule). Significant differences in the dynamical characteristics are observed between compound capsules and homogeneous capsules in both qualitative and quantitative terms. We find the transition from swinging to tumbling can occur at vanishing viscosity mismatch through increasing the inner capsule size alone to a critical value regardless of the initial shape of the nonspherical compound capsule (i.e., prolate or oblate). Besides, for compound capsules with viscosity mismatch, the critical viscosity ratio for the swinging-to-tumbling transition remarkably decreases by increasing the inner capsule size. It is thus concluded that the inner capsule size is a key governing parameter of compound capsule dynamics apart from the capillary number, aspect ratio, and viscosity ratio that have been long identified for homogeneous capsules. Further, we discuss the mechanisms underlying the effects of the inner capsule on the compound capsule dynamics from the viewpoint of the effective viscosity of internal fluid and find that the effects of the inner capsule on compound capsule dynamics are qualitatively similar to that of increasing the internal viscosity on homogeneous capsule dynamics. However, in quantitative terms, the compound capsule cannot be viewed as a homogeneous capsule with higher viscosity as obvious inhomogeneity in fluid stress distribution is induced by the inner membrane.

Stable equilibrium configurations of an oblate capsule in simple shear flow

The objective of the paper is to determine the stable mechanical equilibrium states of an oblate capsule subjected to a simple shear flow, by positioning its revolution axis initially off the shear plane. We consider an oblate capsule with a strain-hardening membrane and investigate the influence of the initial orientation, capsule aspect ratio$a/b$, viscosity ratio${\it\lambda}$between the internal and external fluids and the capillary number$Ca$which compares the viscous to the elastic forces. A numerical model coupling the finite element and boundary integral methods is used to solve the three-dimensional fluid–structure interaction problem. For any initial orientation, the capsule converges towards the same mechanical equilibrium state, which is only a function of the capillary number and viscosity ratio. For$a/b=0.5$, only four regimes are stable when${\it\lambda}=1$: tumbling and swinging in the low and medium$Ca$range ($Ca\lesssim 1$), regimes for which the capsule revolution axis is contained within the shear plane; then wobbling during which the capsule experiences precession around the vorticity axis; and finally rolling along the vorticity axis at high capillary numbers. When${\it\lambda}$is increased, the tumbling-to-swinging transition occurs for higher$Ca$; the wobbling regime takes place at lower$Ca$values and within a narrower$Ca$range. For${\it\lambda}\gtrsim 3$, the swinging regime completely disappears, which indicates that the stable equilibrium states are mainly the tumbling and rolling regimes at higher viscosity ratios. We finally show that the$Ca$–${\it\lambda}$phase diagram is qualitatively similar for higher aspect ratio. Only the$Ca$-range over which wobbling is stable increases with$a/b$, restricting the stability ranges of in- and out-of-plane motions, although this phenomenon is mainly visible for viscosity ratios larger than 1.

Rheology of a dense suspension of spherical capsules under simple shear flow

We present a numerical analysis of the rheology of a dense suspension of spherical capsules in simple shear flow in the Stokes flow regime. The behaviour of neo-Hookean capsules is simulated for a volume fraction up to${\it\phi}=0.4$by graphics processing unit computing based on the boundary element method with a multipole expansion. To describe the specific viscosity using a polynomial equation of the volume fraction, the coefficients of the equation are calculated by least-squares fitting. The results suggest that the effect of higher-order terms is much smaller for capsule suspensions than rigid sphere suspensions; for example,$O({\it\phi}^{3})$terms account for only 8 % of the specific viscosity even at${\it\phi}=0.4$for capillary numbers$Ca\geqslant 0.1$. We also investigate the relationship between the deformation and orientation of the capsules and the suspension rheology. When the volume fraction increases, the deformation of the capsules increases while the orientation angle of the capsules with respect to the flow direction decreases. Therefore, both the specific viscosity and the normal stress difference increase with volume fraction due to the increased deformation, whereas the decreased orientation angle suppresses the specific viscosity, but amplifies the normal stress difference.

Deformation of spherical compound capsules in simple shear flow

The deformation of a compound capsule (an elastic capsule with a smaller capsule inside) in simple shear flow is studied by using three-dimensional numerical simulations based on a front tracking method. The inner and outer capsules are concentric and initially spherical. Skalaket al.’s constitutive law is employed for the mechanics of both the inner and outer membranes. Our results concerning the deformation of homogeneous capsules (i.e. capsules without the inner capsules) are quantitatively in agreement with the predictions of previous numerical simulations and perturbation theories. Compared to homogeneous capsules, compound capsules exhibit smaller deformation. The deformations of both the inner and outer capsules are significantly affected by the capillary numbers of the inner and outer membranes and the volume ratio of the inner to the outer capsule. When the inner capsule is small, it presents smaller deformation than the outer capsule. However, when the inner capsule is sufficiently large, it can present larger deformation than the outer capsule, even if the inner membrane has much lower capillary number than the outer membrane. The underlying mechanisms are discussed: (i) the inner capsule is deformed by rotational flow with lower rate of strain rather than by simple shear flow that deforms the outer capsule, and thus the inner capsule exhibits smaller deformation; and (ii) when the inner and outer membranes are sufficiently close (i.e. the inner capsule is sufficiently large), the hydrodynamic interaction between the two membranes becomes significant, which is found to inhibit the deformation of the outer capsule but to promote the deformation of the inner capsule.

Influence of bending resistance on the dynamics of a spherical capsule in shear flow

The objective of the paper is to study the effect of wall bending resistance on the motion of an initially spherical capsule freely suspended in shear flow. We consider a capsule with a given thickness made of a three-dimensional homogeneous elastic material. A numerical method is used to model the fluid-structure interactions coupling a boundary integral method for the fluids with a shell finite element method for the capsule envelope. For a given wall material, the capsule deformability strongly decreases when the wall bending resistance increases. But, if one expresses the same results as a function of the two-dimensional mechanical properties of the mid-surface, which is how the capsule wall is modeled in the thin-shell model, the capsule deformed shape is identical to the one predicted for a capsule devoid of bending resistance. The bending rigidity is found to have a negligible influence on the overall deformation of an initially spherical capsule, which therefore depends only on the elastic stretching of the mid-surface. Still, the bending resistance of the wall must be accounted for to model the buckling phenomenon, which is observed locally at low flow strength. We show that the wrinkle wavelength is only a function of the wall bending resistance and provide the correlation law. Such results can then be used to infer values of the bending modulus and wall thickness from experiments on spherical capsules in simple shear flow.

Deformation, Orientation and Bursting of Microcapsules in Simple Shear Flow: Wrinkling Processes, Tumbling and Swinging Motions

In a series of experiments we systematically investigated the orientation and deformation behavior of non-spherical capsules in simple shear flow. We observed a continuous capsule rotation at low shear rates, denoted as tumbling mode. A swinging mode at elevated shear rates was characterized by oscillations of the inclination angle around positive values, superimposed by a tank-treading motion of the capsule membrane. The transition between these different modes occurred via an intermittent regime. It turned out that the capsule deformation greatly influenced the orientation dynamics. In several experiments, we also observed shear-induced membrane wrinkling processes.

Three-dimensional dynamics of oblate and prolate capsules in shear flow

We study computationally the dynamics of oblate and prolate spheroidal capsules in simple shear flow with small inertia for a range of dimensionless shear rates. The capsule is modelled as a liquid droplet enclosed by a hyperelastic membrane, and its equatorial plane is initially tilted out of the plane of shear. We find, at low shear rates, the well-accepted tumbling motion is not always stable for both oblate and prolate capsules. For an oblate capsule, the dominant stable modes for increasing dimensionless shear rate are as follows: rolling with the equatorial plane staying in the plane of shear, precessing following Jeffery's orbit [Proc. R. Soc. London A 102, 161 (1922)], and tumbling. Interestingly, the order of modes is reversed for a prolate capsule: tumbling, precessing, and rolling with increasing dimensionless shear rate. At transitional regimes, we find the stable motion of a capsule can depend on its initial titled angle, even at the same shear rate. At high dimensionless shear rates, a spheroidal capsule undergoes a complicated oscillating-swinging motion: Its major axis oscillates about the plane of shear in addition to the swinging about a mean angle with flow direction found previously, and the amplitudes of both oscillations decrease when increasing the dimensionless shear rate towards a steady tank treading motion asymptotically. We summarize the results in phase diagrams and discuss the reorientation of both oblate and prolate capsules in a wide range of dimensionless shear rates.

Orbital drift of capsules and red blood cells in shear flow

Many numerical studies have considered the dynamics of capsules and red blood cells in shear flow under the condition that the axis of revolution of such bodies remained aligned in the shear plane. In contrast, several experimental studies have shown that the axis of revolution of red blood cells could drift away from the shear plane in a certain range of controlling parameters. In this article, we present three-dimensional numerical simulations on the orientation dynamics of capsules in simple shear flow with different initial undeformed shapes, namely, prolate, oblate, and biconcave disk. It is observed that unlike rigid ellipsoids in Stokes flow, capsules reorient their axis of revolution either towards the vorticity axis while undergoing a precessing motion or towards the shear plane while undergoing a kayaking-type motion. The specific dynamics are observed to depend on initial shape, capillary number, and the ratio of the internal to external fluid viscosity. Near the physiological values of the viscosity ratio, the biconcave shape performs a rolling motion like a wheel. If the viscosity ratio is reduced below the physiological range, a transition to the kayaking dynamics is observed with increasing capillary number. The critical shear stress at which the rolling-to-kayaking transition occurs is found to be dependent on the viscosity ratio.

A101 単純剪断流れにおける内部に複数の小カプセルを含んだカプセルの数値解析(A1-1 分散体パイオメカニクス)

A101 単純剪断流れにおける内部に複数の小カプセルを含んだカプセルの数値解析(A1-1 分散体パイオメカニクス)

Accelerated boundary integral method for multiphase flow in non-periodic geometries

An accelerated boundary integral method for Stokes flow of a suspension of deformable particles is presented for an arbitrary domain and implemented for the important case of a planar slit geometry. The computational complexity of the algorithm scales as O(N) or O(NlogN), where N is proportional to the product of number of particles and the number of elements employed to discretize the particle. This technique is enabled by the use of an alternative boundary integral formulation in which the velocity field is expressed in terms of a single layer integral alone, even in problems with non-matched viscosities. The density of the single layer integral is obtained from a Fredholm integral equation of the second kind involving the double layer integral. Acceleration in this implementation is provided by the use of General Geometry Ewald-like method (GGEM) for computing the velocity and stress fields driven by a set of point forces in the geometry of interest. For the particular case of the slit geometry, a Fourier-Chebyshev spectral discretization of GGEM is developed. Efficient implementations employing the GGEM methodology are presented for the resulting single and the double layer integrals. The implementation is validated with test problems on the velocity of rigid particles and drops between parallel walls in pressure driven flow, the Taylor deformation parameter of capsules in simple shear flow and the particle trajectories in pair collisions of capsules in simple shear flow. The computational complexity of the algorithm is verified with results from several large scale multiparticle simulations.

Ellipsoidal capsules in simple shear flow: prolate versus oblate initial shapes

The large deformations of an initially-ellipsoidal capsule in a simple shear flow are studied by coupling a boundary integral method for the internal and external flows and a finite-element method for the capsule wall motion. Oblate and prolate spheroids are considered (initial aspect ratios: 0.5 and 2) in the case where the internal and external fluids have the same viscosity and the revolution axis of the initial spheroid lies in the shear plane. The influence of the membrane mechanical properties (mechanical law and ratio of shear to area dilatation moduli) on the capsule behaviour is investigated. Two regimes are found depending on the value of a capillary number comparing viscous and elastic forces. At low capillary numbers, the capsule tumbles, behaving mostly like a solid particle. At higher capillary numbers, the capsule has a fluid-like behaviour and oscillates in the shear flow while its membrane continuously rotates around its deformed shape. During the tumbling-to-swinging transition, the capsule transits through an almost circular profile in the shear plane for which a long axis can no longer be defined. The critical transition capillary number is found to depend mainly on the initial shape of the capsule and on its shear modulus, and weakly on the area dilatation modulus. Qualitatively, oblate and prolate capsules are found to behave similarly, particularly at large capillary numbers when the influence of the initial state fades out. However, the capillary number at which the transition occurs is significantly lower for oblate spheroids.

Numerical simulation of capsule deformation in simple shear flow

The transient deformation of two-dimensional non-circular and three-dimensional non-spherical capsules in simple shear flow is studied numerically, using the hybrid immersed boundary and multi-block lattice Boltzmann method recently proposed by the present authors. The capsules are modeled as Newtonian liquid drops enclosed by elastic membranes; the liquids inside and outside the capsule have the same physical properties. The present results show important different behaviors between two-dimensional and three-dimensional capsules in shear flow. For two-dimensional non-circular capsules without considering the membrane bending rigidity, or considering the bending with the minimum bending-energy configurations (shapes at which the bending-energy has a global minimum) being uniform-curvature shapes, the capsules will always achieve the steady tank treading motion (a capsule deforms to a steady shape with a steady inclination and the membrane rotates around the liquid inside). However, for three-dimensional non-spherical capsules without membrane bending rigidity, such a steady mode does not exist; with the shear rate decreasing, the three-dimensional capsules’ motion changes from swinging mode (a capsule undergoes periodic shape deformation and inclination oscillation while its membrane is rotating around the liquid inside) to flipping mode. The deformation of two-dimensional capsules, with their initial non-circular shapes taken as the minimum bending-energy configurations, is also considered. It is quite interesting to find such two-dimensional capsules behave qualitatively similar to three-dimensional capsules: there is a swinging-to-flipping transition induced by lowering the shear rate.

Pairwise interaction of capsules in simple shear flow: Three-dimensional effects

We use a boundary integral formulation to investigate the collision of two identical capsules in simple shear flow. Each capsule consists of a viscous liquid drop enclosed by an elastic membrane. The hydrodynamic interaction is characterized by an irreversible cross-flow displacement after the capsules have crossed each other, as also observed for rough spheres or drops. This deflection would cause a shear-induced dispersion in a dilute suspension of capsules. After a previous work devoted to the interaction of two capsules located in the same shear plane, here, we focus on the more general case of capsules also shifted in the vorticity direction. For sufficiently spaced trajectories, the capsules exhibit negative deflections which displace them to closer streamlines after they have crossed. Furthermore, the cross-flow displacement occurs mainly in the vorticity direction. Both phenomena are in contradiction with the conclusions drawn for a pair of drops, and are, therefore, attributed to the elastic nature of the capsule interface.

Inertia effect on the transient deformation of elastic capsules in simple shear flow

The transient deformation of cylindrical liquid-filled capsules with elastic membranes is studied in simple shear flow at small and moderate Reynolds numbers. The aim of the study is to investigate the inertia effect on the deformation of elastic capsules and the flow structure around them. The simulation is based on a hybrid method which introduces the immersed boundary concept in the framework of the multi-block lattice Boltzmann model. The deformation of capsules with circular and elliptical resting shapes is studied; the membrane constitutive model is Hooke’s law. However, the present model can be implemented to capsules with arbitrary resting configurations and constitutive laws. The simulation results show that inertia has important effect on the transient deformation process, steady configuration and tank treading frequency of a capsule in simple shear flow; Inertia also significantly affects the flow structure and vorticity field around and inside a capsule.

Effect of inertia on the hydrodynamic interaction between two liquid capsules in simple shear flow

Three-dimensional numerical simulations using front-tracking method are performed to study the hydrodynamic interaction between two liquid capsules suspended in simple shear flow in presence of inertia. Capsules are modeled as liquid drops surrounded by neo-Hookean elastic membranes. In the limit of zero inertia, it has been known from past research that the hydrodynamic interaction between two deformable particles (drops/capsules) suspended in shear flow results in an irreversible shift in the trajectories of the particles as one particle rolls over the other. In this article, we show that the presence of inertia can significantly alter the capsule trajectories. When inertia is small but finite, the capsules do undergo an irreversible displacement, but the lateral separation between them first decreases before they roll over each other, unlike in Re ≪ 1. For moderate to high inertia, the capsules reverse their directions of motion before coming close to each other. The reversal of motion occurs progressively earlier in time (that is, the capsules come less closer to each other) with increasing inertia. The long-time behavior of the capsule–capsule interaction at finite inertia showed that the capsules engage in spiraling motions. Based on our simulations, four different regimes of capsule–capsule interaction at finite inertia are identified: (i) a self-diffusive type interaction, (ii) an outwardly spiraling motion, (iii) a fixed-orbit spiraling motion, and (iv) an inwardly spiraling motion in which the capsules settle with zero relative velocity. The reversal of motion, and the spiraling trajectories at finite inertia have no analogy in the limit of zero inertia. Such motions are explained by analyzing the flow field around a deformed capsule which shows reverse flow regions and off-surface stagnation points, similar to those previously reported in case of rigid spheres and cylinders under torque-free condition.

Hydrodynamic interaction between two identical capsules in simple shear flow

We present a numerical model of the hydrodynamic interactions between two capsules freely suspended in a simple shear flow. The capsules are identical and each consists of a liquid droplet enclosed by a thin hyperelastic membrane, devoid of bending resistance and obeying a neo-Hookean constitutive law. The two capsules are slightly prestressed with a given inflation ratio in order to avoid the small deformation instability due to compression observed for a single capsule in simple shear flow. The viscosity ratio between the interior and exterior fluids of the capsule is taken to be unity and creeping flow conditions are assumed to prevail. The boundary-element method is used with bi-cubic B-splines as basis functions on a structured mesh in order to discretize the capsule surface. A new method using two grids with initially orthogonal pole axes is developed to eliminate polar singularities in the load calculation and to allow for long computation times. Two capsules suspended in simple shear flow usually have different velocities and thus eventually pass each other. We study this crossing process as a function of flow strength and initial particle separation. We find that hydrodynamic interactions during crossing lead to large shape alterations, elevated elastic tensions in the membrane and result in an irreversible trajectory shift of the capsules. Furthermore, a tendency towards buckling is observed, particularly during the separation phase where large pressure differences occur. Our results are in qualitative agreement with those obtained for a pair of interacting liquid droplets but show the specific role played by the membrane of capsules.

Deformation of a capsule in simple shear flow: Effect of membrane prestress

We investigate the effect of an initial isotropic prestress on the mechanics of a spherical capsule freely suspended in a simple shear flow. The capsule consists of a drop of liquid enclosed by a very thin hyperelastic membrane. A sufficient prestress may prevent the buckling instability that arises at low shear rates when the membrane bending resistance is neglected. A small perturbation analysis of the capsule deformation is first obtained for small prestress and weak viscous stresses. When the viscous shear stress and the preinflation are large, a numerical model of the capsule deformation shows how prestress decreases the capsule deformation for a given shear rate and how it significantly increases the elastic tension in the membrane at a given deformation level. These results may help the experimentalists to detect the presence of an osmotic pressure difference in a semipermeable capsule.