title: Effects of shear rate and suspending viscosity on deformation and frequency of red blood cells tank-treading in shear flows.
abstract: The tank-treading rotation of red blood cells (RBCs) in shear flows has been studied extensively with experimental, analytical, and numerical methods. Even for this relatively simple system, complicated motion and deformation behaviors have been observed, and some of the underlying mechanisms are still not well understood. In this study, we attempt to advance our knowledge of the relationship among cell motion, deformation, and flow situations with a numerical model. Our simulation results agree well with experimental data, and confirm the experimental finding of the decrease in frequency/shear-rate ratio with shear rate and the increase of frequency with suspending viscosity. Moreover, based on the detailed information from our simulations, we are able to interpret the frequency dependency on shear rate and suspending viscosity using a simple two-fluid shear model. The information obtained in this study thus is useful for understanding experimental observations of RBCs in shear and other flow situations; the good agreement to experimental measurements also shows the potential usefulness of our model for providing reliable results for microscopic blood flows.
authors.affiliation: a Bharti School of Engineering, Laurentian University , 935 Ramsey Lake Road, Sudbury , ON P3E 2C6 , Canada.
authors.forename: Othmane
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Oulaid
authors.affiliation: a Bharti School of Engineering, Laurentian University , 935 Ramsey Lake Road, Sudbury , ON P3E 2C6 , Canada.
authors.forename: Abdul-Khalik W
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Saad
authors.affiliation: a Bharti School of Engineering, Laurentian University , 935 Ramsey Lake Road, Sudbury , ON P3E 2C6 , Canada.
authors.forename: Pedro S
authors.initials: PS
authors.lastname: Aires
authors.affiliation: a Bharti School of Engineering, Laurentian University , 935 Ramsey Lake Road, Sudbury , ON P3E 2C6 , Canada.
authors.forename: Junfeng
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D001809:Blood Viscosity; D004912:Erythrocytes / Q000166:cytology*; D006801:Humans; D008955:Models, Cardiovascular; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013314:Stress, Mechanical
keywords: deformation index; erythrocyte; lattice Boltzmann method; shear flow; tank-treading