On the numerical simulation of the dissociation of red blood cell aggregates

Abstract

The aggregation and dissociation of the red blood cells (RBCs) in Poiseuille flow and shear flow have been investigated numerically in this paper. The study takes consideration the particulate nature of the blood. The red blood cell (RBC) is modeled as a closed membrane filled with a Newtonian fluid which has the same viscosity as the surrounding plasma. The cell membrane is described by a spring model so that the deformability of the cells can be considered. The discretization of the governing equations using the operator splitting technique and the finite element method is introduced. An immersed boundary method is also developed for dealing with the cell/fluid interaction in blood flows.