Vesicle tumbling inhibited by inertia

Aymen Laadhari (1) , Pierre Saramito (1) , Chaouqi Misbah (2)

1 EDP - Equations aux Dérivées Partielles
2 LIPhy - Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire de Physique [Saint Martin d’Hères]

Vesicles under flow constitute a model system for the study of red blood cells (RBCs) dynamics and blood rheology. In the blood circulatory system the Reynolds number (at the scale of the RBC) is not always small enough for the Stokes limit to be valid. We develop a numerical method in two dimensions based on the level set approach and solve the fluid/membrane coupling by using an adaptive finite element technique. We find that a Reynolds number of order one can destroy completely the vesicle tumbling motion obtained in the Stokes regime. We analyze in details this phenomenon and discuss some of the far reaching consequences. We suggest experimental tests on vesicles.

Keywords: finite element analysis; haemodynamics; haemorheology; Hemodynamics; Finite element methods; Blood flow in cardiovascular system; Microcirculation and flow through tissues; Physiological materials; Fluid transport and rheology; fluid mechanics; vesicle; stability; biophysics; red blood cell

Domains: Biological Physics [physics.bio-ph]; Fluid Dynamics [physics.flu-dyn]; Biomechanics [physics.med-ph]; Biomechanics [physics.med-ph]; Fluid mechanics [physics.class-ph]; Fluids mechanics [physics.class-ph]; Analysis of PDEs [math.AP]

Aymen Laadhari, Pierre Saramito, Chaouqi Misbah. Vesicle tumbling inhibited by inertia. Physics of Fluids, 2012, 24 (3), pp.031901. ⟨10.1063/1.3690862⟩. ⟨hal-00604401v2⟩