A Lattice Boltzmann Method for Simulating the Separation of Red Blood Cells at Microvascular Bifurcations

A computational simulation for the separation of red blood cells (RBCs) is presented.The deformability of RBCs is expressed by the spring network model,which is based on the minimum energy principle.In the computation of the fluid flow,the lattice Boltzmann method is used to solve the Navier-Stokes equations.Coupling of the fluid-membrane interaction is carried out by using the immersed boundary method.To verify our method,the motions of RBCs in shear flow are simulated.Typical motions of RBCs observed in the experiments are reproduced,including tank-treading,swinging and tumbling.The motions of 8 RBCs at the bifurcation are simulated when the two daughter vessels have different ratios.The results indicate that when the ratio of the daughter vessel diameter becomes smaller,the distribution of RBCs in the two vessels becomes more non-uniform.