Injection of Deformable Capsules in a Reservoir: A Systematic Analysis

Abstract

Motivated by red blood cell dynamics and injectable capsules for drug delivery, in this paper, a computational study of capsule ejection from a narrow channel into a reservoir is undertaken for a combination of varying deformable capsule sizes and channel dimensions. A mass-spring membrane model is coupled to an Immersed Boundary–Lattice Boltzmann model solver. The aim of the present work is the description of the capsules’ motion, deformation and the response of the fluid due to the complex particles’ dynamics. The interactions between the capsules affect the local velocity field and are responsible for the dynamics observed. Capsule membrane deformability is also seen to affect inter-capsule interaction. We observe that the train of three particles locally homogenises the velocity field and the leading capsule travels faster than the other two trailing capsules. Variations in the size of reservoir do not seem to be relevant, while the ratio of capsule diameter to channel diameter as well as the ratio of capsule diameter to inter-capsule spacing play a major role. This flow set-up has not been covered in the literature, and consequently we focus on describing capsule motion, membrane deformation and fluid dynamics, as a preliminary investigation in this field.