Thomas Podgorski

Noninertial lateral migration of vesicles in bounded Poiseuille flow

Cross-streamline noninertial migration of a vesicle in a bounded Poiseuille flow is investigated experimentally and numerically. The combined effects of the walls and of the curvature of the velocity profile induce a movement toward the center of the channel. A migration law (as a function of relevant structural and flow parameters) is proposed that is consistent with experimental and numerical results. This similarity law markedly differs from its analog in unbounded geometry. The dependency on the reduced volume ν and viscosity ratio λ is also discussed. In particular, the migration velocity becomes nonmonotonous as a function of ν beyond a certain λ.

Hydrodynamic lift of vesicles under shear flow in microgravity

The dynamics of a vesicle suspension in a shear flow between parallel plates has been investigated under microgravity conditions, where vesicles are only submitted to hydrodynamic effects such as lift forces due to the presence of walls and drag forces. The temporal evolution of the spatial distribution of the vesicles has been recorded thanks to digital holographic microscopy, during parabolic flights and under normal gravity conditions. The collected data demonstrates that vesicles are pushed away from the walls with a lift velocity proportional to , where is the shear rate, R the vesicle radius and z its distance from the wall. This scaling as well as the dependence of the lift velocity upon the vesicle aspect ratio are consistent with the theoretical predictions by Olla (J. Phys. II 7 (1997) 1533).

Micro-macro link in rheology of erythrocyte and vesicle suspensions.

We report on the rheology of dilute suspensions of red blood cells (RBC) and vesicles. The viscosity of RBC suspensions reveals a previously unknown signature: it exhibits a pronounced minimum when the viscosity of the ambient medium is close to the value at which the transition from tank-treading to tumbling occurs. This bifurcation is triggered by varying the viscosity of the ambient fluid. It is found that the intrinsic viscosity of the suspension varies by about a factor of 4 in the explored parameter range. Surprisingly, this significant change of the intrinsic viscosity is revealed even at low hematocrit (5%). We suggest that this finding may be used to detect blood flow disorders linked to pathologies that affect RBC shape and mechanical properties. This opens future perspectives on setting up new diagnostic tools, with great efficiency even at very low hematocrit. Investigations are also performed on giant vesicle suspensions, and compared to RBCs.

Dynamics and rheology of a dilute suspension of vesicles: higher-order theory.

Vesicles under shear flow exhibit various dynamics: tank treading (TT), tumbling (TB), and vacillating breathing (VB). The VB mode consists in a motion where the long axis of the vesicle oscillates about the flow direction, while the shape undergoes a breathing dynamics. We extend here the original small deformation theory [C. Misbah, Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 028104 (2006)] to the next order in a consistent manner. The consistent higher order theory reveals a direct bifurcation from TT to TB if Ca identical with taugamma is small enough-typically below 0.5, but this value is sensitive to the available excess area from a sphere (tau=vesicle relaxation time towards equilibrium shape, gamma=shear rate). At larger Ca the TB is preceded by the VB mode. For Ca1 we recover the leading order original calculation, where the VB mode coexists with TB. The consistent calculation reveals several quantitative discrepancies with recent works, and points to new features. We briefly analyze rheology and find that the effective viscosity exhibits a minimum in the vicinity of the TT-TB and TT-VB bifurcation points. At small Ca the minimum corresponds to a cusp singularity and is at the TT-TB threshold, while at high enough Ca the cusp is smeared out, and is located in the vicinity of the VB mode but in the TT regime.

Spheres in the vicinity of a bifurcation: elucidating the Zweifach–Fung effect

The problem of the splitting of a suspension in bifurcating channels divided into two branches of non-equal flow rates is addressed. As has long been observed, in particular in blood flow studies, the volume fraction of particles generally increases in the high-flow-rate branch and decreases in the low-flow-rate branch. In the literature, this phenomenon is sometimes interpreted as the result of some attraction of the particles towards this high-flow-rate branch. In this paper, we focus on the existence of such an attraction through microfluidic experiments and two-dimensional simulations and show clearly that such an attraction does not occur but is, on the contrary, directed towards the low-flow-rate branch. Arguments for this attraction are given and a discussion on the sometimes misleading arguments found in the literature is given. Finally, the enrichment of particles in the high-flow-rate branch is shown to be mainly a consequence of the initial distribution in the inlet branch, which shows necessarily some depletion near the walls.

Fingering instabilities of a reactive micellar interface

We present an experimental study of the fingering patterns in a Hele-Shaw cell occurring when a gel-like material forms at the interface between aqueous solutions of a cationic surfactant (cetyltrimethylammonium bromide) and an organic salt (salicylic acid), two solutions known to form a highly elastic wormlike micellar fluid when mixed homogeneously. A variety of fingering instabilities are observed, depending on the velocity of the front (the injection rate), and on which fluid is injected into which. We have found a regime of nonconfined stationary or wavy fingers for which width selection seems to occur without the presence of bounding walls, unlike the Saffman-Taylor experiment. Qualitatively, some of our observations share common mechanisms with instabilities of cooling lava flows or growing biofilms.

The plasma protein fibrinogen stabilizes clusters of red blood cells in microcapillary flows

The supply of oxygen and nutrients and the disposal of metabolic waste in the organs depend strongly on how blood, especially red blood cells, flow through the microvascular network. Macromolecular plasma proteins such as fibrinogen cause red blood cells to form large aggregates, called rouleaux, which are usually assumed to be disaggregated in the circulation due to the shear forces present in bulk flow. This leads to the assumption that rouleaux formation is only relevant in the venule network and in arterioles at low shear rates or stasis. Thanks to an excellent agreement between combined experimental and numerical approaches, we show that despite the large shear rates present in microcapillaries, the presence of either fibrinogen or the synthetic polymer dextran leads to an enhanced formation of robust clusters of red blood cells, even at haematocrits as low as 1%. Robust aggregates are shown to exist in microcapillaries even for fibrinogen concentrations within the healthy physiological range. These persistent aggregates should strongly affect cell distribution and blood perfusion in the microvasculature, with putative implications for blood disorders even within apparently asymptomatic subjects.

Shape diagram of vesicles in Poiseuille flow.

Soft bodies flowing in a channel often exhibit parachutelike shapes usually attributed to an increase of hydrodynamic constraint (viscous stress and/or confinement). We show that the presence of a fluid membrane leads to the reverse phenomenon and build a phase diagram of shapes-which are classified as bullet, croissant, and parachute-in channels of varying aspect ratio. Unexpectedly, shapes are relatively wider in the narrowest direction of the channel. We highlight the role of flow patterns on the membrane in this response to the asymmetry of stress distribution.

Lift and Down-Gradient Shear-Induced Diffusion in Red Blood Cell Suspensions

The distribution of red blood cells (RBCs) in a confined channel flow is inhomogeneous and shows a marked depletion near the walls due to a competition between migration away from the walls and shear-induced diffusion resulting from interactions between particles. We investigated the lift of RBCs in a shear flow near a wall and measured a significant lift velocity despite the tumbling motion of cells. We also provide values for the collective and anisotropic shear-induced diffusion of a cloud of RBCs, both in the direction of shear and in the direction of vorticity. A generic down-gradient subdiffusion characterized by an exponent 1/3 is highlighted.

DRY ARCHES WITHIN FLOWING FILMS

When a liquid film flows down an inclined nonwettable surface, dewetting can be triggered at low flow rate. After a transient, stationary dry patches edged with a liquid rim form. From experimental investigations, we deduce that their shape arises in a large flow range from a balance between the rim weight and surface tension. A simple model based on this assumption provides an analytical expression for the arch shape, in excellent agreement with experiments. The patch size scales as lc2Uc/Γ (lc capillary length, Uc capillary velocity, Γ flow rate per unit length). Above a critical flow rate, of order lcUc, dry patches cannot be stationary and are swept away, leaving a fully wet surface. Both the typical size and the critical flow rate depend nontrivially on the contact angle and on the solid surface inclination.