Hydrodynamic lift of vesicles under shear flow in microgravity

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Published 3 July 2008 Europhysics Letters Association
, , Citation N. Callens et al 2008 EPL 83 24002 DOI 10.1209/0295-5075/83/24002

0295-5075/83/2/24002

Abstract

The dynamics of a vesicle suspension in a shear flow between parallel plates has been investigated under microgravity conditions, where vesicles are only submitted to hydrodynamic effects such as lift forces due to the presence of walls and drag forces. The temporal evolution of the spatial distribution of the vesicles has been recorded thanks to digital holographic microscopy, during parabolic flights and under normal gravity conditions. The collected data demonstrates that vesicles are pushed away from the walls with a lift velocity proportional to , where is the shear rate, R the vesicle radius and z its distance from the wall. This scaling as well as the dependence of the lift velocity upon the vesicle aspect ratio are consistent with the theoretical predictions by Olla (J. Phys. II 7 (1997) 1533).

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