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Abstract
We model the dynamics of the orientation of red blood cells (RBCs) and the aect that their presence has on the velocity blood. This is achieved by modeling RBCs as particles within a Newtonian uid. We use a continuum approach to describe the orientation via so called orientation tensor which describes the average orientation of a particle at a point in space and time. The equations of motion are solved using the nite element method (a standard Galerkin method for the momentum equation and a discontinuous Galerkin method for the evolution equation of the orientation tensor). The numerical scheme is analysed in the case of shear ow for various shapes of particles and for the 2D contraction problem. It is shown that a vortex occurs when particles are present in the uid and that the size of the vortex depends on the shape, size and concentration of particles within the uid.
james.mbewu@gmail.com daya.reddy@uct.ac.za
1
Contents
I. Introduction
4 4 5
7 7 8 9 10 11 13 13 13 14 14
A. Fibres B. Multiple Fibres C. Interpretation of Orientation Tensor D. Evolution of the Orientation Tensor E. Constitutive Equation for Stress F. Closure Approximations 1. Linear Closure 2. Quadratic Closure 3. Hybrid Closure G. The Complete Initial Boundary Value Problem
16 16 16 17 18 19 20 20 22 22 23 23
A. The Momentum Equation 1. Weak Formulation 2. Time Discretisation 3. Space Discretisation 4. Solution method B. The Evolution Equation for the Orientation Tensor 1. Deriving the discontinuous Galerkin formulation. 2. Discretising in time 3. Closure approximations C. Algorithm D. Implementation
IV. Results
24 24
A. Shear Flow
26 30
V. Conclusion
31
References
31
References
31
I.
INTRODUCTION
In this report we model red blood cells (RBCs) as particles suspended in a Newtonian uid. We use the theory of particle suspensions to model the evolution of the orientation of the RBCs and the velocity of the suspending plasma in time. We investigate the steady state behaviour of this coupled system essentially through an unsteady scheme that converges to the steady state. Conclusions on the orientation of RBCs and their eect on the velocity of the suspending plasma can then be drawn.
A.
Fibre Suspensions
The theory of particle suspensions through which we model the RBCs has been developed within the context of polymer suspensions primarily from a materials development perspective. Polymer suspensions are suspensions of particles in a uid (usually Newtonian) and the dynamics of the combined suspension deviate from the dynamics of the uid in a number of ways. Suspensions like these exhibit interesting properties such as the well-known rodclimbing eect, shear thinning or thickening. Usually we are only interested in the resulting behaviour of the bulk medium, however in some cases we are also interested in the dynamics of the suspended particles. In particular it is important to consider the orientation of such particles in the surrounding uid. In short-bre composites a material is reinforced by the presence of particles in the medium. While these are solids eventually and the orientation of particles is xed, they
are moulded into their nal form in a number of ways from uid suspensions in which the orientation of the particles is not xed. The importance of the orientation of the particles is because a composite that has the orientation of its particles aligned along a particular direction will be stronger along this direction than a composite with a random orientation since the particles are stronger than the solid they are xed within. If we know the orientation of the particles we know along which directions this material will be strong and along which directions the material will be weak[13]. Blood is a complex uid that contains a number of dierent particles in a suspension of plasma. The plasma is by volume 92% water and so can be considered an incompressible Newtonian uid. The particles suspended in the plasma that are physically relevant to the
dynamics of blood are red blood cells (other particles such as white blood cells and platelets make up an extremely small proportion of the blood). In a healthy adult plasma makes up 54.3% of the volume of the blood while red blood cells make up 45% of the volume of the blood. It is therefore a good approximation for blood to be modeled as a suspension of particles in an incompressible Newtonian uid. In a healthy adult the shape of RBC are the wellknown bi-concave disks (see Figure 1). While red blood cells are deformable (either due to stresses within the blood or collisions with one another and the walls we will assume for the purposes of this study that they are rigid particles. There are ailments such as sickle cell anaemia where RBCs become very rigid.
B.
Presentation of Thesis
We dene
the orientation tensor that describes the orientation state of the RBC. We derive the evolution equation for the orientation tensor and set up the strong form of the entire problem.
In Section III we describe the solution method that will be used. The equations are discretised in time and space and the discontinuous Galerkin method that is used to solve the evolution equation is derived. The solution method of the resulting matrix problem of the momentum equation is described.
In Section IV the equations are solved and solutions for several cases are shown. The equations are solved for the case of steady shear ow and comparisons are made between the dierent closure approximations and dierent particle shape. The equations are solved for the contraction problem in a 2D domain and comparisons are made between dierent shape and dierent particle concentration. The equations are solved for the case of a RBC.
In Section V we summarise conclusions that can be drawn from the model and outline some of the limitations and avenues for further study.
II.
In this section we will draw on a number of references through which the theory of orientation of particles in bre suspensions has been developed. together are [1, 2, 4, 6, 13]. These references listed
A.
Fibres
Before modeling the dynamics of bre suspensions we need to agree on the geometry and parameters that describe the bres and the suspension. A single bre is considered to be a rigid axisymmetric ellipsoid of length (see Figure 2) . The bre aspect ratio of a bre is dened as the ellipsoid aspect ratio). The orientation (or direction) of a bre is dened by the unit orientation vector
and width
r = l/d
(this is equivalent to
p.
The
cartesian components of the orientation vector can be described in the usual way in terms of the angles
and
(see Figure 2)
p = p
or in spherical coordinates
(4)
p (, ) = p ( + , ) .
B.
Multiple Fibres
Because generally suspensions can have many bres it is not feasible to track the exact orientation of each bre. Instead we use a probabilistic approach by dening a probability density function orientation properties
(, )
p.
This function, being a probability density function should have the following
dA =
S2
sin dd = 1 and 0.
The symmetries in
imply that
(p) = (p) .
We now take
time. We do this even though there is not necessarily a bre at every point in the continuum because it is more convenient for calculations to take a continuum approach Thus function
is in addition a function of
t, x, y
and
points within the suspension[1]. Even this description of the orientation is cumbersome to work with. For this reason we consider the moments of the probability density function. The general orientation tensor function
Ak
is dened as the
k th
Ak = p p . . . p
where
is dened as
B =
0
B sin dd
for a tensor
of arbitrary size.
k.
the orientation tensors of second and fourth order which will hence forth be denoted as and
respectively (all odd order orientation tensors are zero due to the symmetry of the
orientation vector. These two orientation tensors trivially satisfy the symmetry condition (4). For example
A = p p = (p) (p) = A.
8
We will hence forth refer to the second order orientation tensor as the orientation tensor and the fourth order orientation tensor as the fourth order orientation tensor The orientation tensor and fourth order orientation tensor also satisfy symmetry conditions corresponding to all kinds of permutations of indices. For example for the second-order orientation tensor
Aij = pi pj = pj pi = Aji .
(5)
The orientation tensor also has unit trace. For example (summation over indices implied)
Aii = pi pi = 1
since
(6)
The reason it is more desirable to consider orientation tensors as primary variables is because while
(, ) was a
function that we had to solve for and thus innite dimensional, order variables that encapsulate the important information
nk th
about the orientation of bres in the uid. The problem is thus reduced from an innite to nite dimensional problem.
C.
Since the second order orientation tensor will ultimately be our primary variable describing the orientation of the particles it is important that we can interpret it. By denition the orientation tensor is the expected value (average) of consider
p p.
Let us
pp
In 2 dimensions
If the factor
p1 p1
is large then
p1
1st
component. Similarly if
p2 p2
is large then
p1
is
either large negative or large positive and the bre is aligned along the principal axis of the
2nd
from this.
Aij =
1 0 0 0
x1
(7)
from which we can see that the bres will be aligned in the the
x2
direction.
Aij = =1
v=
(8)
T
and nd it only has one eigenvalue and its associated eigenvector is
1 1
From this we conclude that the bres are all aligned in the direction of
v.
Figure 3: An orientation state corresponding to orientation tensor (7) on the left and to orientation tensor (8) on the right. .
D.
Jerey's equation[9] for the orientation of a spheroid (often termed ellipsoid in the literature) particle is
p = Wp + [Dp (p Dp) p]
where
(9)
D=
1 2
v + ( v)T
10
W=
is the spin tensor.
1 2
v ( v)T
Bretherton showed that this equation is valid for any practical volume of revolution for suitable choice of
[5].
Since particles in general are likely to have some sort of interaction either from their eect on the uid or a collision it is necessary to account for this by including a Brownian motion term to Jeery's equation[4, 13]. Adding this term to (10) produces the foll wing equation for the orientation of a particle
p = Wp + [Dp (p Dp) p]
where
Dr p
(10)
Dr
is the rotary diusivity due to Brownian motion. There are many dierent ideas
as to how to choose this constant, but we will use Folgar and Tucker's choice [6] which is
Dr = CI |D|
where
CI
In order to use the above description of the orientation dynamics with orientation tensors we compute the material derivative
DA A = + (v Dt t
and using (10) we nd that
)A
E.
The presence of the bres in the uid contribute a stress within the uid and this stress has to be computed and accounted for when calculating the evolution of the velocity of the uid. This stress will be a function of the orientation of the bres.
11
Since the surrounding uid is assumed incompressible and the bres also incompressible (they are rigid) the total stress stress
so that
T = pI + S
where
is simply
2D
where
however in the case where there are bres present in the uid and the extra stress within in the uid has been found to be
Dr
is suciently small
I , Np
and
Ns
are constants the isotropic viscosity, particle number (not the actual
shape of the particle. Figure 4 shows the relationship between the concentration of particles within the suspension versus the constant the aspect ratio.
Np .
Figure 4: Particle number (Np ) as a function of volume ratio (concentration) and aspect ratio.
12
F.
Closure Approximations
As can be seen from the evolution equation and the stress in the uid they depend on the unknowns
and
A.
exactly
from the equations (we only have an expression for the evolution of need to nd an approximation for that the unit nature of
A).
A A
AD,
the action of
on
D.
Notice
within of
Aijkk = Aij .
It is clear that of
A is intrinsically related to A.
AD as a function
and
D.
There are many approaches to doing this, the dierent approaches being more or less appropriate for dierent bre orientation states. The closure approximations that we will consider are the linear, quadratic and hybrid closure. discussed in [2]. The dierent closure approximations are each suited to specic types of ows. Other closure approximations are
1. Linear Closure
The linear closure approximation as suggested by the name is linear in incompressible uids we will consider is given by
AL D =
where
1 2 D + [2 (DA + AD) + (A : D) I] 35 7
2. Quadratic Closure
The quadratic closure approximation is simply dened as
AQ = A A
and is exact if the bres are fully aligned in some direction.
13
3. Hybrid Closure
The hybrid closure approximation introduced by Advani and Tucker [1] is dened as
AH = (1 f ) AL + f AQ
where
f = 1 n det A
and
is equal to
27
for 3D ows.
G.
The following equations describe the dynamics of the problem in non-dimensional form. Solve the following equations for orientation tensor on the domain
v (x, t)
the velocity,
p (x, t)
A (x, t)
the
[t0 , T ]
v + (v t
)v +
S = 0,
(11)
divv = 0,
3. The constitutive equation for the stress
(12)
S = 2I [D + Np AD + NS (AD + DA)]
4. The evolution equation for the orientation tensor
(13)
(14)
v = v on D
and
(15)
n T = 0 on N ,
14
(16)
v(x, 0) = v0 A (x, 0) = A0
(17) (18)
In addition to the boundary conditions there are constraints that are to be imposed on
A,
namely that
AT = A trA = 1.
(19) (20)
15
III.
SOLUTION METHOD
We wish to solve these equations and an appropriate method is the nite element method. We rst consider the momentum equation (11) and then the evolution equation that it is coupled to.
A.
The momentum equations (11) together with the momentum of mass equation (12) are a generalisation of the Navier-Stokes equations that are commonly used to model uids so there is a large body of literature on ecient and stable methods of discretising and solving these equations.
1. Weak Formulation
The rst step towards the nite element discretisation is to nd the weak (or variational) form of equations (11) and (12). To do this we take the scalar product of the equations by arbitrary weighting functions
and
to obtain
w,
v t
S) = 0
(21)
(q, divv) = 0
where the scalar product is dened for arbitrary scalars, vectors and second order tensors respectively as
where we have used the scalar product for vectors and tensors, namely
abd u vd R : Sd
u v = ui vi
and
R : S = Rij Sij .
16
The third term and fourth terms of the rst equation can be manipulated into a more desirable form if we integrate them by parts to obtain the equations
w, w, w, v t v t
v t
S) = 0
+ (w, ( v) v) + ( w, S) (wS, n) (
w, p) (w (T) , n)n = 0 w, p) = 0 v) = 0
and (22) (23)
where the convection term has been written in an equivalent form and the boundary terms from the integration by parts have equated to zero due to the boundary conditions in (15) and (16). We have also replaced the gradient of ( gradient (D (w)) (we can do this since
with a symmetric tensor equals the scalar product of the symmetric part of the tensor with the symmetric tensor). The advantage of this form of the weak formulation is that it is
more symmetric and is lower order in spatial derivatives which means we can use lower order elements to approximate the velocity and pressure elds.
2. Time Discretisation
To approximate the evolution in time we use a one-step implicit nite dierence scheme. We partition the time domain, that
[0, T ],
so that
such
t = tn+1 tn
w,
vn+1 vn t
+ (w, ( vn+ ) vn ) +
(24)
17
where,
vn+1
in question. The term involving the stress tensor is linear because of the fact that that the stress tensor
is a linear function of
vn+1 ,
contributing to
the term as a whole being linear. This algorithm has also been shown by Simo and Armero [12] to be unconditionally stable for
3. Space Discretisation
We now triangulate the domain
and shape functions for the velocities, pressure and orientation tensor. Note that only rst order derivatives We approximate component-wise the velocities and pressure at time tn+1 using the shape functions from the spaces described above as follows
di
pi
is a vector repre-
is assumed.
Substituting the expressions (25) into the weak formulation, noting that
ci
and
qi
are
18
where
K M M
d p
F G
(26)
Kij =
1 (i j ) d t
(i )
T
j un d
(i j ) un d+
(27)
( i :
j ) d
and
Mij =
i d
(28)
and
Fij
1 = un i d (1 ) (i )T un un d t + (1 ) pn i d (1 ) ( i : uj ) d
(29)
and
Gij = (1 )
un d.
(30)
4. Solution method
Unfortunately the system (26) is not symmetric or positive denite so we cannot be guaranteed of nding a solution. Nevertheless we move forward and solve the system by
condensing out the velocity degrees of freedom in the following manner. The block system of equations (26) can be multiplied out on written as
Kd + MT p = F Md = G
which upon rearrangement we nd that
MK1 MT p = MK1 F G Kd = F MT p.
19
B.
As with the momentum equation we rst nd the variational form by taking the scalar product of equation (14) with an arbitrary 2nd order tensor
to produce
DA , B (WA AW) , B Dt
Equations of this type have been studied in the closely related context of viscoelastic uids. tensor. In viscoelastic uids the variable equivalent to the orientation tensor is the stress It has been found that because of the hyperbolic nature of the equation if we
attempt to solve the problem in the standard nite element manner the solution diverges and we cannot nd a convergent solution. A number of schemes exist in order to combat this. The scheme that we will use is called the discontinuous Galerkin method. This scheme developed by Lesaint and Raviart [10] and applied to the viscoelastic formulation by Fortin and Fortin [7]. The method was used in relation to bre suspensions by Reddy and Mitchell[11]. To apply this method it is necessary to use discontinuous elements. We choose elements that interpolate bilinearly i.e. the space of
Q1
elements.
overlapping sub domains. Each of these sub domains, dene the inow boundary
k .
We further
as
n (x)
\ .
These denitions are also carried over to the sub domain boundaries with the
obvious notations
and
+ . k
tot =
k
k .
20
The discontinuous Galerkin method is concerned with the problematic convective term. The integration implicit in the scalar products of equation (31) now takes place over each sub domain so we can rewrite the convective term as
(v
k=1
A) , B
=
k=1
(n v) A, B
k=1
(v
B) , A
(32)
where we have applied the divergence theorem. Because of the discontinuous nature of the elements at any point of the boundary of each sub domain (except the boundary of the entire domain) there are two values for the orientation tensor. We denote the orientation tensor on the current element the orientation tensor on the adjacent element as
as
Ai
and
Ae .
e A + (1 ) Ai i A + (1 ) Ae
on \ k on + \+ k
(33)
where
[0, 1].
values of the orientation tensor. Note that these values are not dened on the boundary of the domain
since there it is clear that the only value we can dene for the orientation
Ai .
We can now split up the scalar product in the rst term of 32 into the relevant parts of the boundary, namely the inow and outow boundaries on the interior (tot \) and on the exterior boundary as follows
(v
k=1
A) , B
=
k=1 K
(n v) Ai , B
+
k=1 K
(n v) Ae + (1 ) Ai , B (n v) Ai + (1 ) Ae , B
k=1 K
\ k
+ \+ k
+
k=1 K
(n v) Ai , B (v
k=1
+ + k
B) , A
(34)
Ai .
21
The next step is to apply the divergence theorem to the last term and instead of using the values in (33) for the orientation tensor on the interior boundaries (\) we use the interior value to form
Ai .
The rst and third terms of (34) cancel and the rest of the terms combine
(v
k=1
A) , B
=
k=1 K
(n v) [A] , B (v
k=1
\ k
+ (1 )
k=1
(n v) [A] , B
+ \+ k
+
where
A) , B
[A] Ae Ai
Thus the discontinuous Galerkin formulation consists of using this value for the convective term in (31). As a numerical scheme this is consistent for continuous orientation tensor values since in that case the exact solution is continuous and
[A] = 0
2. Discretising in time
We discretise the evolution equation in a similar way to the momentum equation by using the backward dierence for the time derivative and evaluating the other terms at time-step
n+
so that
A , B (WA AW)n+ , B t
where
,B
n+
(35)
=0
A ,B t
=
K
An+1 An ,B t
+ (un+
K \ k
) An+ , B
+ (n v) [A] , B
and as before
+ (1 ) (n v) [A] , B
+ \+ k
n+
[A] = Ae Ai .
3. Closure approximations
There are a few issues that we have to resolve when attempting to solve the evolution equation. Firstly the fourth order orientation tensor needs to be approximated in terms of
22
the second order orientation tensor. In the linear closure there is no issue since the linearity of equation (31) is preserved, however in the case of the quadratic and hybrid closures the substitution of the fourth order tensor with its closure approximation causes (31) to become nonlinear. In order to make the equation linear we use the simplication of the quadratic closure that
AQ = An+1 An . n+1
C.
Algorithm
Both of these iterative equations need to be evaluated at each time step however they both rely on values of the primary variables (u,
and
A)
each equation depends on the result of the other equation (in essence a coupled system of equations). To get around this conundrum, at each time-step we solve the evolution equation for the orientation tensor using
un
un+1
An+1
to
solve the momentum equation for the velocity and pressure. To start o the method and obtain a suitable ow eld so that the equations are convergent we solve the momentum equation assuming that the orientation tensor is not changing in time and use this value of
and
We iterate through each time step until we reach a steady solution which we test for by comparing the variables with their values at the previous time step and ensure they are less than some tolerance.
D.
Implementation
The coding of the nite element equations was done in C++ using the deal.II library of functions for nite elements[3].
23
IV.
RESULTS
In order to analyse the equations of motion we numerically solve them for a few representative cases. We analyse the performance of the evolution equation in the case of fully developed shear ow where we assume that the orientation of the particles has no inuence on the velocity eld. We then simulate the full set of equations for the representative contraction problem.
A.
Shear Flow
We numerically solve the evolution equation of the orientation equation in shear ow i.e. velocity
v = (u, v)
of the form
v = (y, 0).
orientation will not depend spatially and thus we can solve the resulting equations on a single element. Figure (5) shows the evolution of the orientation tensor for the parameter values
CI =
and
It can be seen that the orientation tends to a constant value however the rate
study the evolution equation for shear ow the steady state solution it is independent of the choice of
since
[D] =
0
1/2
1/2
, [W] =
1/2
1/2 0
and the shear rate can be taken out as a constant factor of the terms not containing derivatives of the orientation tensor.
Evolution of Orientation Tensor for Shear Flow 1.5 1.5 Evolution of Orientation Tensor for Shear Flow 0.9 0.8 1 a11 a11 1 a11 0.7 0.6 0 0 0.5 Evolution of Orientation Tensor for Shear Flow
0.5
0.5
10
15
20
25 time (s)
30
35
40
45
50
10
15
20
25 time (s)
30
35
40
45
50
10
15
20
25 time (s)
30
35
40
45
50
10
15
20
25 time (s)
30
35
40
45
50
10
15
20
25 time (s)
30
35
40
45
50
Figure 5: Evolution of the orientation tensor in shear ow for dierent velocity magnitudes ( =
0.1, 1, 10).
24
For the linear closure the problem is linear so we can attempt to solve them exactly. This was done and we found that there was no solution unless and
=0
A11 = 0.5
A12 = 0.
The reason that the nite element method obtained a solution is because the
nite element solution is only a weak solution (a solution in an averaged sense). Note that a nite element solution will only converge to an exact solution if it exists and in this case it does not. Figure (6) shows a comparison between the numerical solution to the strong form of the evolution equation and a nite element solution. The numerical solution of the strong form was performed using the
ode45
they are almost identical so the nite element method is a good solution method and the linearisation of the quadratic closure of the fourth order orientation tensor is appropriate.
0.8
0.6
0.4
10
15
20
25 time (s)
30
35
40
45
50
0.4
10
15
20
25 time (s)
30
35
40
45
50
10
15
20
25 time (s)
30
35
40
45
50
Figure 6: Evolution of orientation tensor using quadratic closures and solving using nite elements (left) and via the strong form (right).
Figure (7) shows the evolution of the orientation tensor for dierent closures and dierent values of
should be no preferred axis of orientation. This is indeed the case as when that
A11 = 0.5
and
A12 = 0
results compare favourably to the same computations done by Reddy and Mitchell [11].
25
Linear Closure 0.95 0.9 0.85 0.8 0.1 0.75 a11 a12 0.05 0.7 0 0.65 0.6 0.55 0.5 0.05 =1 = 0.5 = 0.1 0.25
0.2
0.15
0.1
10
15
20
25 time (s)
30
35
40
45
50
0.15
10
15
20
25 time (s)
30
35
40
45
50
Quadratic Closure 0.95 0.9 0.85 0.8 0.75 a11 0.7 0.65 0.6 0.55 0.5 a12 =1 = 0.5 = 0.1 0.35 0.3 0.25 0.2 0.15 0.1 0.05 0 0.05 0.1
10
15
20
25 time (s)
30
35
40
45
50
10
15
20
25 time (s)
30
35
40
45
50
Hybrid Closure 1 0.95 0.9 0.2 0.85 0.8 a11 0.75 0.7 0.65 0 0.6 0.55 0.5 0.05 a12 0.15 =1 = 0.5 = 0.1 0.3
0.25
0.1
0.05
10
15
20
25 time (s)
30
35
40
45
50
0.1
10
15
20
25 time (s)
30
35
40
45
50
Figure 7: Evolution of the orientation tensor for representative values of lambda and dierent closures.
B.
Contraction Flow
We now study the eect that the orientation of particles has on the ow through a contracted domain. The geometry of this problem is that of 2D ow through a pipe where the size of the pipe is abruptly shortened. The boundary conditions imposed are that of
pressure driven ow through a pipe on the left inow boundary, a natural, zero traction,
26
boundary on the right outow boundary and no-slip conditions (zero velocity) on the walls. The top-bottom symmetry of the problem means that we only need to consider half of the domain and for the centre line we impose the symmetry boundary conditions that the velocity always be tangent to the line of symmetry. This problem is a typical benchmark problem for non-Newtonian uids because there are clear qualitative dierences between Newtonian and non-Newtonian uids' velocities in this problem. The problem also presents clear regions of dierent stresses on the uid, from the stretching along the centre line to the shearing that occurs nearer the walls. Our rst goal is to nd out the eect the particles and their orientation has on the velocity eld. In order to compare to the case of no particles we solve the equations of a regular
S = 2I D.
Np = 0
so that the
velocity is independent of the particles and we have a Newtonian uid. In this simulation we have set
I = 1
=1
t = 0.1.
The steady state solution, found after 1.7 seconds is shown in Figure 27. In Figure 28 for comparison we have used the same parameters except that
Np = 10
and
= 1.
The most obvious observation we make is that there is a large vortex in the corner of the inow when there are particles in the uid. This is a general property of non-Newtonian and viscoelastic uids.
Figure 10 shows the relation between particle shape and vortex length. is dened as the distance the vortex extends from the wall in the
direction.
negative shape factor corresponds to squashed particles such as disks and a positive shape shape factor corresponds to elongated particles such as rods. It is interesting to note that the plot is fairly symmetric about the centre (spherical particles). Also note that while
spherical particles create the smallest vortex it still creates a vortex even though there is no preferred orientation (see Section IV A). A possible explanation for the larger vortex for larger values of
||
create more drag within the uid and a vortex is more likely to occur.
28
Vortex Length
1 0.8 0.6
0.4
0.2
0 1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
Figure 10: Relation between particle shape factor, , and vortex length.
Figure 11 shows how the vortex length increases with increasing particle number
Np .
When the particle number is zero (no particles) there is no vortex as we expect as it is a Newtonian uid, however as we increase the particle number the size of the vortex increases. The size of the vortex does not appear to grow unbounded however.
1.4
1.2
1 Voretex Length
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
5 Np
10
Figure 11: The relation between particle number Np and vortex length.
29
C.
In order to apply this model to red blood cells we need to choose an appropriate value for the shape factor (1)).
that corresponds to the biconcave shape of a red blood cell (see Figure The red blood cell is
shown by Bretherton [5]. We cannot simply use the ratio of height to diameter because the concavity of the disk adds other drag-type eects. Finding an exact or even approximate analytical value is also not possible. The only way is to compare with experimental results. This has been done by numerous authors [8]. Goldsmith's value being We will examine the ow behaviour using
= 0.748,
the negative value here of course due to the oblate nature of the red blood cell. Figure 12 shows the ow for red blood cells in the contraction problem. There is a large vortex in the corner of the contraction. The applicability of this is that it is in places
where there is a vortex and no recycling of blood cells with blood cells from upstream that undesirable build ups of material are likely to occur. What is interesting to note is that, unlike some other non-Newtonian uids there is no so-called lip vortex. This informs us that there is unlikely to be buildups in these areas.
30
V.
CONCLUSION
We have studied the theory of bre suspension ows for dilute rigid particles in a Newtonian uid. We have solved the equations of motion using the nite element method. For the momentum equation the usual Galerkin formulation is used and we have linearised the convective term in the equation. The evolution equation of the orientation is solved on discontinuous elements and the discontinuous Galerkin method is used to stabilise the method so that we can obtain convergent solutions. These methods were coded and the solutions were found to agree with the literature. First the evolution equation was solved assuming that the suspending uid is undergoing steady shear ow. It was found that long slender particles tend to align in the direction
of the suspending uid whereas spherical particles do not align in any particular direction. Flat disk-like particles tend to align perpendicular to the ow and thus we conclude that particles align in a direction which oers the least resistance to the ow. Then the benchmark contraction was solved for the full set of equations. It was found that in the presence of bres a vortex appears in the corner. This is a characteristic of nonNewtonian uids. The size and shape of this vortex depends on the concentration and shape of the particles in the suspension. Unlike in some other non-Newtonian uids, a so-called lip vortex does not appear for the parameter values tested. In order accurately model uids such as blood it is necessary to take into account the higher concentration of particles and the interaction and deformation of these particles. Also since blood is always in a bounded domain it is important to take into account he interactions of particles with the wall. These issues have been studied in a the literature however a comprehensive study has never been done taking all of these factors into account and using real data so that the theory can have predictive use. This is an interesting direction in which further study can occur.
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