The Evolution of the Orientation of Particles within a Fluid

James MBewu (MBWJAM001) and Supervisor: Prof. B. D. Reddy

Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics, University of Cape Town

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.

Electronic address: Electronic address:

james.mbewu@gmail.com daya.reddy@uct.ac.za
1

Contents

I. Introduction

4 4 5

A. Fibre Suspensions B. Presentation of Thesis

II. Modeling the Problem

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

III. Solution Method

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

B. Contraction Flow C. Application to Red Blood Cells

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.

Figure 1: Schematic of a RBC.

B.

Presentation of Thesis

The presentation of this thesis is as follows:

In Section II we outline the model that is used to describe the RBCs.

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.

MODELING THE PROBLEM

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)

p1 = cos sin p2 = sin sin p3 = cos .

Note that the symmetry of the bre implies the symmetries

(1) (2) (3)

p = p
or in spherical coordinates

(4)

p (, ) = p ( + , ) .

Figure 2: The geometrical description of a single bre.

7

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

(, )

over some region that expresses the probability of a bre having

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

to be a function of space so that it varies smoothly with position and

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

since the orientation can be dierent at dierent

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

moment of the probability density

Ak = p p . . . p
where

is dened as

B =
0

B sin dd

for a tensor

of arbitrary size.

is an unknown orientation vector.

This orientation tensor is a tensor of order

k.

Practically it is sucient to consider

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)

are unit vectors.

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

the orientation tensors are

nk th

about the orientation of bres in the uid. The problem is thus reduced from an innite to nite dimensional problem.

C.

Interpretation of Orientation Tensor

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 component form to understand what it says about the bre orientation.

We can always diagonalise we then have

p p by using its principal axes as basis vectors. [p p] = p1 p1 0 0 p2 p2 .

In 2 dimensions

If the factor

p1 p1

is large then

p1

is either large negative or large positive and the bre

is aligned along the principal axis of the

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

component. Note that we cannot deduce the actual average value of

from this.

As an example let us consider the orientation tensor

Aij =

1 0 0 0

x1
(7)

from which we can see that the bres will be aligned in the the

direction and not at all in

x2

direction.

For another example consider the orientation tensor

Aij = =1

0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5

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.

Evolution of the Orientation Tensor

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

is the rate of deformation tensor and

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

is a constant called the interaction coecient.

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

DA = (WA AW) + (DA + AD 2AD) + Dr (I nA) , Dt

the so-called evolution equation of the orientation tensor.

E.

Constitutive Equation for Stress

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

T can be separated into an isotropic pressure p and an extra

so that

T = pI + S
where

is the identity tensor.

In a Newtonian uid this stress

is simply

2D

where

is the viscosity of the uid

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

S = 2I [Np AD + Ns (DA + AD)]

where

I , Np

and

Ns

are constants the isotropic viscosity, particle number (not the actual

number of particles) and shear number respectively. The constants

Np and Ns depend on the

shape of the particle. Figure 4 shows the relationship between the concentration of particles within the suspension versus the constant the aspect ratio.

Np .

Notice that the relationship is dependent on

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.

This is not desirable as we have no way of computing

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).

For this reason we

A A

or more precisely imply that

AD,

the action of

on

D.

Notice

within of

Aijkk = Aij .
It is clear that of

A is intrinsically related to A.

We therefore attempt to nd

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

and for the

AL D =
where

1 2 D + [2 (DA + AD) + (A : D) I] 35 7

I is the identity tensor.

It can be shown that the linear closure approximation is exact

for the case of random orientation of bres.

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

for 2D ows and

27

for 3D ows.

G.

The Complete Initial Boundary Value Problem

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)

the pressure and

A (x, t)

the

[t0 , T ]

1. The conservation of momentum (generalised Navier Stokes equation)

v + (v t

)v +

S = 0,

(11)

2. The conservation of mass (incompressibility condition)

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)

DA = (WA AW) + (DA + AD 2AD) + Dr (I nA) . Dt

These equations are to be solved subject to the boundary conditions

(14)

v = v on D
and

(15)

n T = 0 on N ,
14

(16)

with the initial conditions

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

is symmetric and has unit trace

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 Equation

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

+ (w, v ( v)) + (w, p) (w,

S) = 0
(21)

(q, divv) = 0

where the scalar product is dened for arbitrary scalars, vectors and second order tensors respectively as

(a, b) = (u, v) = (R, S) =

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

+ (w, v ( v)) + (w, p) (w,

S) = 0

+ (w, ( v) v) + ( w, S) (wS, n) (

w, p) + (wp, n) = 0 w, p) + (wp, n)n = 0

+ (w, ( v) v) + (D (w) , S) (wS, n)n ( w, v t + (w, ( v) v) + (D (w) , S) ( w, v t

w, p) (w (T) , n)n = 0 w, p) = 0 v) = 0
and (22) (23)

+ (w, ( v) v) + (D (w) , S) ( (q,

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

w) has been replaced with the symmetric

is symmetric and the scalar product of a tensor

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

0 = t0 < t1 < . . . < tn < < tN = T

such

t = tn+1 tn

and the weak formulation becomes

w,

vn+1 vn t

+ (w, ( vn+ ) vn ) +

1 (D (w) , Sn+ ) ( w, pn+ ) = 0 Re (q, vn+ ) = 0

(24)

17

where,

vn+ = vn+1 + (1 ) vn pn+ = pn+1 + (1 ) pn Sn+ = S (vn+ , An+ ) .

The advantage of this algorithm is that unlike the original momentum equation it is linear. This can be seen by noting that each term is linear in

vn+1

which is the unknown variable

in question. The term involving the stress tensor is linear because of the fact that that the stress tensor

is a linear function of

which 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

1 and correctly captures the diusive nature of the Navier-Stokes equations. 2

The stress tensor using equation (13).

needs to be computed at each time step as a function of the velocity

3. Space Discretisation
We now triangulate the domain

To choose an appropriate space for the test functions

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

un+1 = i di vn+1 = i ci pn+1 = i pi q n+1 = i qi

where (25)

di

is a vector describing the displacement degrees of freedom and

pi

is a vector repre-

senting the pressure degrees of freedom. Summation over

is assumed.

Substituting the expressions (25) into the weak formulation, noting that

ci

and

qi

are

18

arbitrary and simplifying we obtain the matrix form of the problem

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.

The Evolution Equation for the Orientation Tensor

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

(DA + AD 2AD) + 2 2CI |D| (I nA) , B = 0

(31)

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.

1. Deriving the discontinuous Galerkin formulation.

Let us rst examine the geometry upon which the calculations take place. As usual with nite element formulations we take a domain

with boundary and subdivide it into non k ,

has a boundary

overlapping sub domains. Each of these sub domains, dene the inow boundary

k .

We further

as

{x : v (x) n (x) < 0}

where

n (x)

is the outer unit normal.

The outow boundary is then dened as

\ .

These denitions are also carried over to the sub domain boundaries with the

obvious notations

and

+ . k

We also dene the union of all faces of elements as

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 .

Using these values of the orientation

tensor we dene the values of the orientation unambiguously on the boundary as

e A + (1 ) Ai i A + (1 ) Ae

on \ k on + \+ k

(33)

where

[0, 1].

This is intuitively a weighted average of the so-called upwind and downwind

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

tensor is the interior value

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)

where we have used the values in (33) and on

we have used the interior value

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

and the scheme is consistent if the

Galerkin scheme it was derived from is consistent (it is).

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

(DA + AD 2AD) + 2 2CI |D| (I nA)

,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)

at the current time step and thus

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

for the value of

un+1

and then use the resulting value

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

as the initial condition.

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).

Because of symmetry considerations the

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

0.01, = 1, = 1, t = 0.1 = 0.1, 1, 10 A12 (0) = 0.

with initial condition

A11 (0) = 0.5

It can be seen that the orientation tends to a constant value however the rate

at which it reaches this value depends on the shear rate

This make sense because if we

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

0.4 0.2 a12 a12 0 0.2 0.4

0.4 0.2 0 0.2 0.4 a12 0 5 10 15 20 25 time (s) 30 35 40 45 50

0.3 0.2 0.1 0 0.1

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

and in this case

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

function in matlab, a Runge-Kutta solver. As can be seen

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.

Finite Element Solution 1 1

Strong Form Solution

0.8 a11 a11 0.6

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

0.4 0.3 a12 0.2 0.1 0 a12 0 5 10 15 20 25 time (s) 30 35 40 45 50

0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0

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

Note that when

= 0 the shape of the particle is spherical and intuitively there =0

we have These

should be no preferred axis of orientation. This is indeed the case as when that

A11 = 0.5

and

A12 = 0

which corresponds to a random average orientation.

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

Linear Closure =1 = 0.5 = 0.1

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

Quadratic Closure =1 =0.5 = 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

Hybrid Closure =1 =0.5 =0.1

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

Newtonian uid with

S = 2I D.

For this we set the particle number

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

and have used a fully implicit scheme with

=1

and time step

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 8: Velocity eld of a Newtonian uid with no suspension.

27

Figure 9: Velocity eld with suspension.

Figure 10 shows the relation between particle shape and vortex length. is dened as the distance the vortex extends from the wall in the

Vortex length Note that

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

||

is that the particles

create more drag within the uid and a vortex is more likely to occur.

28

1.6 1.4 1.2

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.

Application to Red Blood Cells

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

We assume that the blood cell is rigid and not deformable.

axisymmetric so we can expect there to be a

that correctly describes its orientation as

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.

Figure 12: Flow in contraction problem for red blood cells.

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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short ber composites, Journal of Rheology

Journal of Rheology (1990), 367386.

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volume 2: Kinetic theory, Wiley, New York, 1987.

[5] F. P. Bretherton, The motion of rigid particles in a shear ow at low reynolds number, Journal of Fluid Mechanics
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(1962), 284304.

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32