scholarly journals Semi-analytical solutions for two-dimensional elastic capsules in Stokes flow

Author(s):  
Michael Higley ◽  
Michael Siegel ◽  
Michael R. Booty

Elastic capsules occur in nature in the form of cells and vesicles and are manufactured for biomedical applications. They are widely modelled, but there are few analytical results. In this paper, complex variable techniques are used to derive semi-analytical solutions for the steady-state response and time-dependent evolution of two-dimensional elastic capsules with an inviscid interior in Stokes flow. This provides a complete picture of the steady response of initially circular capsules in linear strain and shear flows as a function of the capillary number Ca . The analysis is complemented by spectrally accurate numerical computations of the time-dependent evolution. An imposed nonlinear strain that models the far-field velocity in Taylor's four-roller mill is found to lead to cusped steady shapes at a critical capillary number Ca c for Hookean capsules. Numerical simulation of the time-dependent evolution for Ca > Ca c shows the development of finite-time cusp singularities. The dynamics immediately prior to cusp formation are asymptotically self-similar, and the similarity exponents are predicted analytically and confirmed numerically. This is compelling evidence of finite-time singularity formation in fluid flow with elastic interfaces.

2016 ◽  
Vol 793 ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin L. Vaughan ◽  
James B. Grotberg

Certain medical treatments involve the introduction of exogenous liquids in the lungs. These liquids can form plugs within the airways. The plugs propagate throughout the branching network in the lungs being forced by airflow. They leave a deposited film on the airway walls and split at bifurcations. Understanding the resulting distribution of liquid throughout the lungs is important for the effective administration of the prescribed treatments. In this paper, we investigate numerically the splitting of a liquid plug by a two-dimensional pulmonary bifurcation under the influence of a transverse gravitational field. The splitting is characterized by the splitting ratio, which is the ratio of volume of the liquid plug in the daughter channels and depends on the capillary number and the orientation of the bifurcation plane with respect to a three-dimensional gravitational field. It is observed that gravity induces asymmetry in the splitting, causing the splitting ratio to be reduced. This effect is mitigated as the capillary number is increased. It is also observed that there exists a critical capillary number where the plug will not split and will instead propagate entirely into the gravitationally favoured daughter channel. We also compute the wall stresses on the bifurcation walls and observe the locations where stresses and their gradients are the highest in magnitude.


2001 ◽  
Vol 432 ◽  
pp. 419-441
Author(s):  
ISAO KANDA ◽  
P. F. LINDEN

We investigate the horizontal flow produced by source–sink forcing in a stably stratified fluid. The forcing jets are kept laminar and are placed along the boundary of a square domain. We find that the resultant flow patterns are extremely sensitive to the forcing geometry. The single dominant vortex pattern, interpreted as the result of inverse energy cascade of two-dimensional turbulence in our previous work (Boubnov, Dalziel & Linden 1994), turns out to be a special case. We show that some of the steady patterns resemble the eigenmodes of the Helmholtz equation as the inviscid vorticity equation. Although there are significant discrepancies in the streamfunction vs. vorticity relations between the observed flows and the analytical solutions, we identify the differences as a result of viscous diffusion of vorticity from the source flows. We also study the transition from forced to decaying flow. The flow assumes the properties of Stokes flow at quite large Reynolds number, indicating transformation into patterns with small advective acceleration.


2000 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 249-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. RICHARDSON

Consider the two-dimensional quasi-steady Stokes flow of an incompressible Newtonian fluid occupying a time-dependent region bounded by free surfaces, the motion being driven solely by a constant surface tension acting at the free boundaries. When the fluid region is simply-connected, it is known that this Stokes flow problem is closely related to a Hele-Shaw free boundary problem when the zero-surface-tension model is employed. Specifically, if the initial configuration for the Stokes flow problem can be produced by injection at N points into an empty Hele-Shaw cell, then so can all later configurations. Moreover, there are N invariants; while the N points at which injection must take place move, the amount to be injected at each of these points remains the same. In this paper, we consider the situation when the fluid region is doubly-connected and show that, provided the geometry has an appropriate rotational symmetry, the same results continue to hold and can be exploited to determine the solution of the Stokes flow problem.


1999 ◽  
Vol 383 ◽  
pp. 29-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANTHONY D. SCHLEIZER ◽  
ROGER T. BONNECAZE

The dynamic behaviour and stability of a two-dimensional immiscible droplet subject to shear or pressure-driven flow between parallel plates is studied under conditions of negligible inertial and gravitational forces. The droplet is attached to the lower plate and forms two contact lines that are either fixed or mobile. The boundary-integral method is used to numerically determine the flow along and dynamics of the free surface. For surfactant-free interfaces with fixed contact lines, the deformation of the interface is determined for a range of capillary numbers, droplet to displacing fluid viscosity ratios, droplet sizes and flow type. It is shown that as the capillary number or viscosity ratio or size of the droplet increases, the deformation of the interface increases and above critical values of the capillary number no steady shape exists. For small droplets, and at low capillary numbers, shear and pressure-driven flows are shown to yield similar steady droplet shapes. The effect of surfactants is studied assuming a fixed amount of surfactant that is subject to convective–diffusive transport along the interface and no transport to or from the bulk fluids. Increasing the surface Péclet number, the ratio of convective to diffusive transport, leads to an accumulation of surfactant at the downstream end of the droplet and creates Marangoni stresses that immobilize the interface and reduce deformation. The no-slip boundary condition is then relaxed and an integral form of the Navier-slip model is used to examine the effects of allowing the droplet to slip along the solid surface in a pressure-driven flow. For contact angles less than or equal to 90°, a stable droplet spreads along the wall until a steady shape is reached, when the droplet translates across the wall at a constant velocity. The critical capillary number is larger for these droplets compared to those with pinned contact lines. For contact angles greater than 90°, the wetted area between a stable droplet and the wall decreases until a steady shape is reached. The critical capillary number for these droplets is less than that for pinned droplets. Above the critical capillary number the droplet completely detaches for a contact angle of 120°, or part of it is pinched off leaving behind a smaller attached droplet for contact angles less than or equal to 90°.


2014 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 165-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Wiggins ◽  
A. M. Mancho

Abstract. In this paper we consider fluid transport in two-dimensional flows from the dynamical systems point of view, with the focus on elliptic behaviour and aperiodic and finite time dependence. We give an overview of previous work on general nonautonomous and finite time vector fields with the purpose of bringing to the attention of those working on fluid transport from the dynamical systems point of view a body of work that is extremely relevant, but appears not to be so well known. We then focus on the Kolmogorov–Arnold–Moser (KAM) theorem and the Nekhoroshev theorem. While there is no finite time or aperiodically time-dependent version of the KAM theorem, the Nekhoroshev theorem, by its very nature, is a finite time result, but for a "very long" (i.e. exponentially long with respect to the size of the perturbation) time interval and provides a rigorous quantification of "nearly invariant tori" over this very long timescale. We discuss an aperiodically time-dependent version of the Nekhoroshev theorem due to Giorgilli and Zehnder (1992) (recently refined by Bounemoura, 2013 and Fortunati and Wiggins, 2013) which is directly relevant to fluid transport problems. We give a detailed discussion of issues associated with the applicability of the KAM and Nekhoroshev theorems in specific flows. Finally, we consider a specific example of an aperiodically time-dependent flow where we show that the results of the Nekhoroshev theorem hold.


2018 ◽  
Vol 859 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Viúdez

Exact solutions for multipolar azimuthal-mode vortices in two-dimensional Euler flows are presented. Flow solutions with non-vanishing far-field velocity are provided for any set of azimuthal wavenumbers $m$ and arbitrary number $n$ of vorticity shells. For azimuthal wavenumbers $m=0$ and $m=1$, the far-field velocity is a rigid motion and unsteady flow solutions with vanishing far-field velocity are obtained by means of a time-dependent change of reference frame. Addition of these first two modes, in the case of $n=1$, results in a particular Chaplygin–Lamb (C–L) dipole, with continuous and vanishing vorticity at the vortex boundary. Numerical simulations suggest that this particular C–L dipole is stable.


1997 ◽  
Vol 351 ◽  
pp. 139-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. POZRIKIDIS

The evolution of the interface between two viscous fluid layers in a two-dimensional horizontal channel confined between two parallel walls is considered in the limit of Stokes flow. The motion is generated either by the translation of the walls, in a shear-driven or plane-Couette mode, or by an axial pressure gradient, in a plane-Poiseuille mode. Linear stability analysis for infinitesimal perturbations and fluids with matched densities shows that when the viscosities of the fluids are different and the Reynolds number is sufficiently high, the flow is unstable. At vanishing Reynolds number, the flow is stable when the surface tension has a non-zero value, and neutrally stable when the surface tension vanishes. We investigate the behaviour of the interface subject to finite-amplitude two-dimensional perturbations by solving the equations of Stokes flow using a boundary-integral method. Integral equations for the interfacial velocity are formulated for the three modular cases of shear-driven, pressure-driven, and gravity-driven flow, and numerical computations are performed for the first two modes. The results show that disturbances of sufficiently large amplitude may cause permanent interfacial deformation in which the interface folds, develops elongated fingers, or supports slowly evolving travelling waves. Smaller amplitude disturbances decay, sometimes after a transient period of interfacial folding. The ratio of the viscosities of the two fluids plays an important role in determining the morphology of the emerging interfacial patterns, but the parabolicity of the unperturbed velocity profile does not affect the character of the motion. Increasing the contrast in the viscosities of the two fluids, while keeping the channel capillary number fixed, destabilizes the interfaces; re-examining the flow in terms of an alternative capillary number that is defined with respect to the velocity drop across the more-viscous layer shows that this is a reasonable behaviour. Comparing the numerical results with the predictions of a lubrication-flow model shows that, in the absence of inertia, the simplified approach can only describe a limited range of motions, and that the physical relevance of the steadily travelling waves predicted by long-wave theories must be accepted with a certain degree of reservation.


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