title: Simulation of Deformation and Aggregation of Two Red Blood Cells in a Stenosed Microvessel by Dissipative Particle Dynamics.
abstract: The motion of two red blood cells in a stenosed microvessel was simulated using dissipative particle dynamics. The effects of intercellular interaction, red blood cell deformability and the initial cell orientation on the deformation and aggregation of the RBCs and on the flow resistance were investigated. The red blood cell membrane was treated as a three-dimensional coarse-grained network model and the intercellular interaction was modeled by the Morse potential based on a depletion-mediated assumption. It is shown that the flow resistance increases dramatically when the red blood cells enter into the stenosis and decreases rapidly as RBCs move away from the stenosis. Particularly, for a pair of stiffer red blood cells with the initial inclination angle of 90°, the maximum value of the flow resistance is larger; while a higher flow resistance can also come from a stronger aggregation. For a pair of stiffer red blood cells moving parallel to the main flow, when their positions are closer to the vessel wall at the upstream of the stenosis, the flow resistance increases due to the migration to the vessel center at the stenosis. In addition, for a pair of red blood cells with the initial inclination angle of 0°, the flow resistance from the aggregate formed by a pair of red blood cells with a larger deformation is higher.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China.|School of Aerospace Engineering and Applied Mechanics, Tongji University, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: Lanlan
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Xiao
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China. yang.liu@polyu.edu.hk.
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: School of Aerospace Engineering and Applied Mechanics, Tongji University, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: Shuo
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, The City College of the City University of New York, New York, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Bingmei
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Fu
mesh_terms: D004903:Erythrocyte Aggregation; D004907:Erythrocyte Deformability; D004912:Erythrocytes / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*; D055806:Microvessels / Q000502:physiology*; D008958:Models, Molecular
keywords: Deformation and aggregation; Dissipative particle dynamics; Flow resistance; Intercellular interaction; Red blood cells