Motion of a spherical capsule in branched tube flow with finite inertia

Abstract eng:
We study computationally the transient motion of an initially spherical capsule flowing through a tube with a right-angled side branch, using an immersed-boundary lattice Boltzmann method. We focus on path selection of the capsule at the bifurcation as a function of a range of parameters, including the flow split ratio, the Reynolds number, the capillary number, and the capsule-to-tube size ratio. We find that the capsule trajectory is strongly influenced by the Reynolds and capillary numbers which play opposite role. Through its significant effect on the background flow, inertia increases the likelihood of the capsule to flow into the downstream main tube. On the contrary, the deformation of the capsule promotes its cross-stream migration towards the side branch. When the flow strength is increased, both the fluid inertia and capsule deformation increase: we summarize their effects in a phase diagram, which provides information on path selection depending on the parameters.

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