General coarse-grained red blood cell models: I. Mechanics

TL;DR

This paper introduces a rigorous method for deriving coarse-grained red blood cell models that accurately replicate mechanical properties and address limitations of previous models, suitable for various numerical simulation techniques.

Contribution

The authors develop a semi-analytic approach to create RBC models with realistic mechanics and a stress-free configuration, improving upon existing models' accuracy and stability.

Findings

Models match optical tweezers experimental data.

Nearly stress-free RBC models avoid shape and property dependencies.

Compatible with multiple numerical simulation methods.

Abstract

We present a rigorous procedure to derive coarse-grained red blood cell (RBC) models, which lead to accurate mechanical properties of realistic RBCs. Based on a semi-analytic theory linear and non-linear elastic properties of the RBC membrane can be matched with those obtained in optical tweezers stretching experiments. In addition, we develop a nearly stress-free model which avoids a number of pitfalls of existing RBC models, such as non-biconcave equilibrium shape and dependence of RBC mechanical properties on the triangulation quality. The proposed RBC model is suitable for use in many existing numerical methods, such as Lattice Boltzmann, Multiparticle Collision Dynamics, Immersed Boundary, etc.