Efficient and accurate simulations of deformable particles immersed in a fluid using a combined immersed boundary lattice Boltzmann finite element method

TL;DR

This paper presents a combined immersed boundary lattice Boltzmann finite element method for simulating deformable particles in fluids, emphasizing efficiency and accuracy for small resolutions and analyzing the effects of mesh and hydrodynamic resolution.

Contribution

It introduces a computational approach that maintains accuracy with low-resolution meshes, analyzing the impact of various numerical parameters on simulation results.

Findings

Mesh tessellation details have minor impact on results.

Hydrodynamic resolution significantly affects accuracy.

Reducing computational time is feasible without sacrificing precision.

Abstract

The deformation of an initially spherical capsule, freely suspended in simple shear flow, can be computed analytically in the limit of small deformations [D. Barthes-Biesel, J. M. Rallison, The Time-Dependent Deformation of a Capsule Freely Suspended in a Linear Shear Flow, J. Fluid Mech. 113 (1981) 251-267]. Those analytic approximations are used to study the influence of the mesh tessellation method, the spatial resolution, and the discrete delta function of the immersed boundary method on the numerical results obtained by a coupled immersed boundary lattice Boltzmann finite element method. For the description of the capsule membrane, a finite element method and the Skalak constitutive model [R. Skalak et al., Strain Energy Function of Red Blood Cell Membranes, Biophys. J. 13 (1973) 245-264] have been employed. Our primary goal is the investigation of the presented model for small resolutions to provide a sound basis for efficient but accurate simulations of multiple deformable particles immersed in a fluid. We come to the conclusion that details of the membrane mesh, as tessellation method and resolution, play only a minor role. The hydrodynamic resolution, i.e., the width of the discrete delta function, can significantly influence the accuracy of the simulations. The discretization of the delta function introduces an artificial length scale, which effectively changes the radius and the deformability of the capsule. We discuss possibilities of reducing the computing time of simulations of deformable objects immersed in a fluid while maintaining high accuracy.