Depletion layer formation in suspensions of elastic capsules in Newtonian and viscoelastic fluids

Motivated by observations of the effects of drag-reducing polymer additives on various aspects of blood flow, suspensions of fluid-filled elastic capsules in Newtonian fluids and dilute solutions of high molecular weight (drag-reducing) polymers are investigated during plane Couette flow in a slit geometry. A simple model is presented to describe the cross-stream distribution of capsules as a balance of shear-induced diffusion and wall-induced migration due to capsule deformability. The model provides a theoretical prediction of the dependence of capsule-depleted layer thickness on the capillary number. A computational approach is then used to directly study the motion of elastic capsules in a Newtonian fluid and in polymer solutions. Capsule membranes are modeled using a neo-Hookean constitutive model and polymer molecules are modeled as bead-spring chains with finitely extensible nonlinearly elastic springs, with parameters chosen to loosely approximate 4000 kDa poly(ethylene oxide). Simulations are performed with a Stokes flow formulation of the immersed boundary method for the capsules, combined with Brownian dynamics for the polymer molecules. Results for an isolated capsule near a wall indicate that the wall-induced migration depends on the capillary number and is strongly reduced by addition of polymer. Numerical simulations of suspensions of capsules in Newtonian fluid illustrate the formation of a capsule-depleted layer near the walls. The thickness of this layer is found to be strongly dependent on the capillary number. The shear-induced diffusivity of the capsules, on the other hand, shows only a weak dependence on capillary number. These results thus indicate that the mechanism of wall-induced migration is the primary source for determining the capillary number dependence of the depletion layer thickness. Both the wall-induced migration and the shear-induced diffusive motion of the capsules are attenuated under the influence of polymer; reduction of migration dominates, however, so the net effect of polymers on the capsule suspension is to reduce the thickness of the capsule-depleted layer. This prediction is in qualitative agreement with experimental observations. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4726058]