A simple model of a vesicle drop in a confined geometry (original) (raw)

Mechanics and stability of vesicles and droplets in confined spaces

Physical Review E, 2016

The permeation and trapping of soft colloidal particles in the confined space of porous media is of critical importance in cell migration studies, design of drug delivery vehicles and colloid separation devices. Our current understanding of these processes is however limited by the lack of quantitative models that can relate how the elasticity, size and adhesion properties of the vesicle/pore complex affects colloid transport. We address this shortcoming by introducing a semi-analytical model that predicts the equilibrium shapes of a soft vesicle driven by pressure in a narrow pore. Using this approach, the problem is recast in terms of pressure and energy diagrams that characterize the vesicle stability and permeation pressures in different conditions. We particularly show that the critical permeation pressure for a vesicle arises from a compromise between the critical entry pressure and exit pressure, both of which are sensitive to geometrical features, mechanics and adhesion. We further find that these results can be leveraged to rationally design micro-fluidic devices and diodes that can help characterize, select and separate colloids based on physical properties.

The equilibria of vesicles adhered to substrates by short-ranged potentials

Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 2013

In equilibrium, a vesicle that is adhered to a horizontal substrate by a long-range attractive, short-range repulsive force traps a thin layer of fluid beneath it. In the asymptotic limit that this layer is very thin, there are quasi-two-dimensional boundary-layer structures near the edges of the vesicle, where the membrane's shape is governed by a balance between bending and adhesive stresses. These boundary layers are analysed to obtain corrections to simpler models that instead represent the adhesive interaction by a contact potential, thereby resolving apparent discontinuities that arise when such models are used. Composite expansions of the shapes of two-dimensional vesicles are derived. When, in addition, the adhesive interaction is very strong, there is a nested boundary-layer structure for which the adhesive boundary layers match towards sharp corners where bending stresses remain important but adhesive stresses are negligible. Outside these corners, bending stresses are...

Two-dimensional vesicle dynamics under shear flow: Effect of confinement

Physical Review E, 2011

Dynamics of a single vesicle under shear flow between two parallel plates is studied in two-dimensions using lattice-Boltzmann simulations. We first present how we adapted the lattice-Boltzmann method to simulate vesicle dynamics, using an approach known from the immersed boundary method. The fluid flow is computed on an Eulerian regular fixed mesh while the location of the vesicle membrane is tracked by a Lagrangian moving mesh. As benchmarking tests, the known vesicle equilibrium shapes in a fluid at rest are found and the dynamical behavior of a vesicle under simple shear flow is being reproduced. Further, we focus on investigating the effect of the confinement on the dynamics, a question that has received little attention so far. In particular, we study how the vesicle steady inclination angle in the tank-treading regime depends on the degree of confinement. The influence of the confinement on the effective viscosity of the composite fluid is also analyzed. At a given reduced volume (the swelling degree) of a vesicle we find that both the inclination angle, and the membrane tank-treading velocity decrease with increasing confinement. At sufficiently large degree of confinement the tank-treading velocity exhibits a nonmonotonous dependence on the reduced volume and the effective viscosity shows a nonlinear behavior.

New Results for Directed Vesicles and Chains near an Attractive Wall

Journal of Statistical Physics, 2000

In this paper we present new exact results for single fully directed walks and fully directed vesicles near an attractive wall. This involves a novel method of solution for these types of problems. The major advantage of this method is that it, unlike many other single-walker methods, generalizes to an arbitrary number of walkers. The method of solution involves solving a set of partial difference equations with a Bethe Ansatz. The solution is expressed as a "constant-term" formula which evaluates to sums of products of binomial coefficients. The vesicle critical temperature is found at which a binding transition takes place, and the asymptotic forms of the associated partition functions are found to have three different entropic exponents depending on whether the temperature is above, below, or at its critical value. The expected number of monomers adsorbed onto the surface is found to become proportional to the vesicle length at temperatures below critical. Scaling functions near the critical point are determined.

A necklace model for vesicles simulations in 2D

International Journal for Numerical Methods in Fluids, 2014

The aim of this paper is to propose a new numerical model to simulate 2D vesicles interacting with a newtonian fluid. The inextensible membrane is modeled by a chain of circular rigid particles which are maintained in cohesion by using two different type of forces. First, a spring force is imposed between neighboring particles in the chain. Second, in order to model the bending of the membrane, each triplet of successive particles is submitted to an angular force.

Stable shapes of three-dimensional vesicles in unconfined and confined Poiseuille flow

We use numerical simulations to study the dynamics of three dimensional vesicles in unconfined and confined Poiseuille flow. Previous numerical studies have shown that when the fluid viscosity inside and outside the vesicle is same (no viscosity contrast), a transition from asymmetric slippers to symmetric parachutes takes place as viscous forcing or capillary number is increased. At higher viscosity contrast, an outward migration tendency has also been observed in unconfined flow simulations. In this paper, we study how the presence of viscosity contrast and confining walls affect the dynamics of vesicles and present phase diagrams for confined Poiseuille flow with and without viscosity contrast. To our knowledge, this is the first study that provides a phase diagram for 3D vesicles with viscosity contrast in confined Poiseuille flow. The confining walls push the vesicle towards the center while the viscosity contrast has the opposite effect. This interplay leads to important differences in the dynamics like bistability at high capillary numbers.

Hydrodynamics and rheology of a vesicle doublet suspension

Physical Review Fluids, 2019

The dynamics of an adhesive two-dimensional vesicle doublet under various flow conditions is investigated numerically using a high-order, adaptive-in-time boundary integral method. In a quiescent flow, two nearby vesicles move slowly towards each other under the adhesive potential, pushing out fluid between them to form a vesicle doublet at equilibrium. A lubrication analysis on such draining of a thin film gives the dependencies of draining time on adhesion strength and separation distance that are in good agreement with numerical results. In a planar extensional flow we find a stable vesicle doublet forms only when two vesicles collide head-on around the stagnation point. In a microfluid trap where the stagnation of an extensional flow is dynamically placed in the middle of a vesicle doublet through an active control loop, novel dynamics of a vesicle doublet are observed. Numerical simulations show that there exists a critical extensional flow rate above which adhesive interaction is overcome by the diverging stream, thus providing a simple method to measure the adhesion strength between two vesicle membranes. In a planar shear flow, numerical simulations reveal that a vesicle doublet may form provided that the adhesion strength is sufficiently large at a given vesicle reduced area. Once a doublet is formed, its oscillatory dynamics is found to depend on the adhesion strength and their reduced area. Furthermore the effective shear viscosity of a dilute suspension of vesicle doublets is found to be a function of the reduced area. Results from these numerical studies and analysis shed light on the hydrodynamic and rheological consequences of adhesive interactions between vesicles in a viscous fluid.

Dynamics of Vesicle Formation from Lipid Droplet: Mechanism and Controllability

2008

A coarse-grained model developed by Marrink et al. [J. Phys. Chem. B 111, 7812 (2007)] is applied to investigate vesiculation of lipid [dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine (DPPC)] droplets in water. Three kinds of morphologies of micelles are found with increasing lipid droplet size. When the initial lipid droplet is smaller, the equilibrium structure of the droplet is a spherical micelle. When the initial lipid droplet is larger, the lipid ball starts to transform into a disk micelle or vesicle. The mechanism of vesicle formation from a lipid ball is analyzed from the self-assembly of DPPC on the molecular level, and the morphological transition from disk to vesicle with increasing droplet size is demonstrated. Importantly, we discover that the transition point is not very sharp, and for a fixed-size lipid ball, the disk and vesicle appear with certain probabilities. The splitting phenomenon, i.e., the formation of a disk/vesicle structure from a lipid droplet, is explained by applying a hybrid model of the Helfrich membrane theory. The elastic module of the DPPC bilayer and the smallest size of a lipid droplet for certain formation of a vesicle are successfully predicted.

Two-dimensional model of vesicle adhesion on curved substrates

Acta Mechanica Sinica, 2006

We develop a two dimensional model of a vesicle adhered on a curved substrate via long-range molecular interactions while subjected to a detachment force. The relationship between the force and displacement of the vesicle is investigated as a function of the substrate shape. It is shown that both the forcedisplacement relationship and the maximum force at pull-off are significantly dependent on the substrate shape. The results suggest that probes with different tip shapes may be designed for cell manipulation. For example, we demonstrate that a vesicle can be pulled off a flat surface using a probe with a curved tip.

A directed walk model of a long chain polymer in a slit with attractive walls

Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and General, 2005

We present the exact solutions of various directed walk models of polymers confined to a slit and interacting with the walls of the slit via an attractive potential. We consider three geometric constraints on the ends of the polymer and concentrate on the long chain limit. Apart from the general interest in the effect of geometrical confinement, this can be viewed as a two-dimensional model of steric stabilization and sensitized flocculation of colloidal dispersions. We demonstrate that the large width limit admits a phase diagram that is markedly different from the one found in a half-plane geometry, even when the polymer is constrained to be fixed at both ends on one wall. We are not able to find a closed form solution for the free energy for finite width, at all values of the interaction parameters, but we can calculate the asymptotic behaviour for large widths everywhere in the phase plane. This allows us to find the force between the walls induced by the polymer and hence the regions of the plane where either steric stabilization or sensitized flocculation would occur.