Section: Application Domains

Red blood cells

Hammou El-Otmany started his PhD thesis in October 2012 in our group, supervised by D. Capatina and D. Graebling. The thesis is financed by UPPA (50%) and CDAPP (50%) and concerns the numerical simulation of biological fluids flows. We will focus more particularly on the physical and numerical modeling of red blood cells.

Clinically, some pathologies such as drepanocytosis or sickle cell anemia are due to the abnormal form of red blood cells. In the microcirculation, where cells must deform to pass through narrow capillaries, the deformability of individual red blood cells is a major determinant of resistance to flow.

The goal is twofold. On the one hand, we want to propose a realistic modeling of red blood cells in artery flow, by taking into account the membrane's viscoelasticity and thus, its deformability. The latter is essentially linked to its structure (i.e. its cellular geometry, membrane properties and cytoplasmic viscosity); thus structural abnormalities, as found in some haematological disorders can be expected to affect blood flow in the microcirculation and/or red cell lifespan.

On the other hand, we want to develop an efficient and stable numerical method in order to treat the coupling between the different models involved: Navier-Stokes for the matrix (blood) and for the cytoplasme (interior of the cell) and a non-Newtonian fluid (for instance, Giesekus) for the membrane. We will use the NXFEM method to take into account the interfaces between fluids.