Electrohydrodynamics of Three-Dimensional Vesicles: A Numerical Approach

TL;DR

This paper introduces a comprehensive 3D numerical model for vesicle electrohydrodynamics under DC electric fields, accurately capturing membrane capacitance and electric potential dynamics, validated against existing experimental and computational data.

Contribution

It presents a novel 3D numerical approach combining a semi-implicit level set Jet scheme and an implicit Immersed Interface Method for detailed vesicle electrohydrodynamics simulation.

Findings

Model accurately predicts vesicle behavior under electric fields.

Results align well with experimental and previous computational studies.

Conservation of volume and surface area is effectively maintained.

Abstract

A three-dimensional numerical model of vesicle electrohydrodynamics in the presence of DC electric fields is presented. The vesicle membrane is modeled as a thin capacitive interface through the use of a semi-implicit level set Jet scheme. The enclosed volume and surface area are conserved both locally and globally by a new Navier-Stokes projection method. The electric field calculations explicitly take into account the capacitive interface by an implicit Immersed Interface Method formulation, which calculates the electric potential field and the trans-membrane potential simultaneously. The results match well with previously published experimental, analytic and two-dimensional computational works.