The effects of suspending fluid viscoelasticity on the mechanical properties of capsules and red blood cells in flow

The mechanical behavior of spherical capsules and red blood cells in shear and confined pressure-driven flow of polymeric fluids was studied computationally. In particular, we study the effect of suspending fluid elasticity on the steady mechanical behavior of spherical capsules and red blood cells suspended in an Oldroyd-B fluid, in dilute shear and confined pressure-driven flow, as a model system for dilute suspensions of capsules in polymeric fluids. We investigate the effects of suspending fluid elasticity at fixed capillary number on the capsule deformation, membrane tensions, and effective viscosity for a range of capsule capillary numbers. For both spherical capsules and red blood cells, capsule deformation was found to decrease with increasing fluid elasticity in shear flow, and increase in confined pressure-driven flow. The average membrane tension for spherical capsules was found to follow the same trends: decreasing in shear and increasing in pressure-driven flow; however, the average membrane tension for red blood cells had a less pronounced trend with fluid elasticity, which we attribute to the reduced volume of the red blood cell. On the other hand, the effective viscosity of the suspension was found to be non-monotonic with an increase in suspending fluid elasticity for both flows and particle types. The underlying mechanisms for these trends were investigated by comparing these capsule simulations to results from rigid spherical particles. These results indicate that the mechanical behavior of these dilute capsule suspensions can be qualitatively understood by examining the disturbance flow created by the introduction of rigid spherical particles, and the subsequent stress induced in the polymeric fluid to these disturbances.