Multiscale modeling of blood flow: from single cells to blood rheology

Abstract

Mesoscale simulations of blood flow, where the red blood cells are described as deformable closed shells with a membrane characterized by bending rigidity and stretching elasticity, have made much progress in recent years to predict the flow behavior of blood cells and other components in various flows. To numerically investigate blood flow and blood-related processes in complex geometries, a highly efficient simulation technique for the plasma and solutes is essential. In this review, we focus on the behavior of single and several cells in shear and microcapillary flows, the shear-thinning behavior of blood and its relation to the blood cell structure and interactions, margination of white blood cells and platelets, and modeling hematologic diseases and disorders. Comparisons of the simulation predictions with existing experimental results are made whenever possible, and generally very satisfactory agreement is obtained.

Equilibrium physics breakdown reveals the active nature of red blood cell flickering

“…To obtain an accurate averaging of fluctuations at the time scales of several minutes, which is much longer than a typical RBC relaxation time, we need to employ a coarse-grained model of the membrane, restricting its triangulation to about a thousand vertices. This coarsegrained description for a RBC has proved to reproduce quantitatively and accurately the viscoelasticity of the RBC membrane as well as deformation of RBCs due external forces (laser tweezers) and under flow 64,65 .…”

Methods of Blood Flow Modelling

“…Dissipative Particle Dynamics (DPD) is a mesoscale method where each particle describes a small volume of the simulated medium rather than an individual molecule [45,47,59,65]. Their interaction is determined by the conservative, dissipative and random forces acting between each two particles:…”

“…The experiment provides the values of transversal and longitudinal diameters of a cell under two stretching loads [127]. In order to determine parameters of our erythrocyte model, this experiment can be reproduced in numerical simulations [15,47,63]. Consider a RBC with the initial biconcave shape.…”

Structure formation of surfactant membranes under shear flow

“…This model is well suitable to study membrane dynamics accompanied by topological changes. Alternatively, membranes can be modeled as triangulated surfaces, 29,33,34 which require however discrete bond reconnections to describe topological changes. 33,35,36 After the first meshless-membrane model was proposed in 1991, 37 several meshless-membrane models have been developed.…”