Lattice Boltzmann simulations on the tumbling to tank-treading transition: effects of membrane viscosity
Abstract
The tumbling to tank-treading (TB-TT) transition for red blood cells (RBCs) has been widely investigated, with a main focus on the effects of the viscosity ratio λ (i.e., the ratio between the viscosities of the fluids inside and outside the membrane) and the shear rate γ ˙ applied to the RBC. However, the membrane viscosity μm plays a major role in a realistic description of RBC dynamics, and only a few works have systematically focused on its effects on the TB-TT transition. In this work, we provide a parametric investigation on the effect of membrane viscosity μm on the TB-TT transition for a single RBC. It is found that, at fixed viscosity ratios λ , larger values of μm lead to an increased range of values of capillary number at which the TB-TT transition occurs; moreover, we found that increasing λ or increasing μm results in a qualitatively but not quantitatively similar behaviour. All results are obtained by means of mesoscale numerical simulations based on the lattice Boltzmann models.
This article is part of the theme issue `Progress in mesoscale methods for fluid dynamics simulation'.- Publication:
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Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London Series A
- Pub Date:
- October 2021
- DOI:
- 10.1098/rsta.2020.0395
- arXiv:
- arXiv:2012.06190
- Bibcode:
- 2021RSPTA.37900395G
- Keywords:
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- Condensed Matter - Soft Condensed Matter;
- Physics - Fluid Dynamics
- E-Print:
- doi:10.1098/rsta.2020.0395