Open Access

ARTICLE

Entrance of a Bioartificial Capsule in a Pore

A. Diaz¹, D. Barthès-Biesel²

1 UMR CNRS 6600, UTC, BP 20649, 60206 Compiègne, France
2 Corresponding author: tel : (33) 344 234 397 fax: (33) 344 204 813 e-mail: dbb@utc.fr

Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences 2002, 3(3), 321-338. https://doi.org/10.3970/cmes.2002.003.321

Abstract

This paper deals with the numerical study of the flow of a bioartificial capsule in a long axisymmetric pore with a hyperbolic entrance. The capsule consists of an infinitely thin and hyperelastic membrane filled with a Newtonian liquid. The resolution of the problem is based on an integral formulation of Stokes equations along with a boundary element method. The model allows the study of the influence of various parameters such as the membrane rheology, the membrane elasticity, the viscosity ratio λ between the capsule fluid and the suspending fluid, the capsule shape and size.
Owing to the important number of parameters involved in the problem, the effect of viscosity ratio λ and of the membrane rheology are investigated separately in the regime of large deformations. Special attention is given to the influence of the capsule initial shape. Specifically, we have considered ellipsoidal capsules with aspect ratio A/B=0.28 which thus have the same sphericity index as red blood cells. It is found that the entrance of the capsule in the pore is very sensitive to the capsule shape and volume. The influence of viscosity ratio λ is important in cases where quasi-plugging of the pore is reached. The effect of capsule rheology is significant when the deformations are very large.

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