Rheological properties of sheared vesicle and cell suspensions

TL;DR

This study uses numerical simulations to explore how vesicle suspensions behave under shear flow, revealing how viscosity ratios influence their rheological properties and wall interactions.

Contribution

It introduces a hybrid simulation method combining mesoscopic solvent modeling with membrane elasticity to analyze vesicle suspension rheology.

Findings

Intrinsic viscosity increases with viscosity ratio.

Depletion layer thickness grows with viscosity ratio.

Flow behavior varies with vesicle concentration and viscosity ratio.

Abstract

Numerical simulations of vesicle suspensions are performed in two dimensions to study their dynamical and rheological properties. An hybrid method is adopted, which combines a mesoscopic approach for the solvent with a curvature-elasticity model for the membrane. Shear flow is induced by two counter-sliding parallel walls, which generate a linear flow profile. The flow behavior is studied for various vesicle concentrations and viscosity ratios between the internal and the external fluid. Both the intrinsic viscosity and the thickness of depletion layers near the walls are found to increase with increasing viscosity ratio.