Gwenn Boedec

3D vesicle dynamics simulations with a linearly triangulated surface

Simulations of biomembranes have gained an increasing interest in the past years. Specificities of these membranes propose new challenges for the numerics. In particular, vesicle dynamics are governed by bending forces as well as a surface incompressibility constraint. A method to compute the bending force density resultant onto piecewise linearly triangulated surface meshes is described. This method is coupled with a boundary element method solver for inner and outer fluids, to compute vesicle dynamics under external flows. The surface incompressibility constraint is satisfied by the construction of a projection operator.

Axisymmetric Boundary Element Method for vesicles in a capillary

The problem of a vesicle transported by a fluid flow can present a large range of length scales. One example is the case of a vesicle producing a tether, and eventually pearls, in an elongational flow. Another case occurs when a lubrication film is formed, such as during the short range interaction between two vesicles. Such problems are still challenging for 3D simulations. On the other hand, a good understanding could be obtained by first considering the axisymmetric regime when such a regime exists. An axisymmetric model could then be used, without the criticisms that can be made of a 2D approach. We propose such a model, primarily interested in flows through narrow cylindrical capillaries. Two options are compared, with and without explicit representation of the capillary boundaries by a mesh. The numerical effort is characterized as a function of the vesicles initial shape, the flow magnitude and the confinement. The model is able to treat typical configurations of red blood cells flowing through very narrow pores with extremely thin lubrication films.

Isogeometric FEM-BEM simulations of drop, capsule and vesicle dynamics in Stokes flow

We develop an algorithm for the three dimensional simulation of the dynamics of soft objects (drops, capsules, vesicles) under creeping flow conditions. Loop elements are used to describe the shape of the soft objects. This surface representation is used both for membrane solver based on finite element method (FEM) and for the fluid solver based on the boundary element method (BEM). This isogeometric analysis of the low Reynolds fluidstructure interaction problem is then coupled to high-order explicit time stepping or second-order implicit time stepping algorithm. For vesicles simulation, a preconditioner is designed for the resolution of the surface velocity incompressibility constraint, which is treated by the use of a local Lagrange multiplier. A mesh quality preserving algorithm is introduced to improve the control mesh quality over long simulation times. We test the proposed algorithm on capsule and vesicle dynamics in various flows, and study its convergence properties, showing a second-order convergence O(N2) with mesh number of elements.

Breathing instability in biological cells, patterns of membrane proteins

The activity of biological cells involves often the electric activity of its membranes which exhibit various spatiotemporal dynamics, from pulse, oscillatory bifurcation to stationary spatial modulation. This last kind of patterns appears on a typical diffusive time. A model has been proposed implying a coupling between the current flowing through membrane proteins and their electrophoretic motions in the case of mobile proteins. Here, we study the stability of the pattern in a 2D circular model cell versus the appearance of standing waves, the so-called breathing secondary instability.