Modeling the Sedimentation of Red Blood Cells in Flow under Strong External Magnetic Body Force Using a Lattice Boltzmann Fictitious Domain Method

Experimental observations show that a strong magnetic field has a dramatic influence on the sedimentation of RBCs, which motivates us to model the sedimentation of red blood cell (RBC) under strong external magnetic body force. To model the sedimentation of a RBC in a square duct and a circular pipe, a recently developed technique derived from the lattice Boltzmann and the distributed Lagrange multiplier/fictitious domain methods (LBM-DLM/FD) is extended to employ the mesoscopic network model for simulations of the sedimentation of a RBC in flow. The flow is simulated by the LBM with a strong magnetic body force, while the network model is used for modeling RBC deformation. The fluid-RBC interactions are enforced by the Lagrange multiplier. The sedimentation of RBC in a square duct and a circular pipe is simulated, which demonstrates the developed method’s capability to model the sedimentation of RBCs in various flows. Numerical results illustrate that the terminal settling velocity increases incrementally with the exerted body force. The deformation of RBC has a significant effect on the terminal settling velocity due to the change in the frontal area. The larger the exerted force, the smaller the frontal area and the larger the RBC deformation become. Additionally, the wall effect on the motion and deformation of RBC is also investigated.