Related papers: Non-linear mechanical response of the Red Blood Ce…
We reveal that under moderate shear stress (of the order of 0.1 Pa) red blood cells present an oscillation of their inclination (swinging) superimposed to the long-observed steady tanktreading (TT) motion. A model based on a fluid ellipsoid…
We describe a model of cytoskeletal mechanics based on the force-induced conformational change of protein cross-links in a stressed polymer network. Slow deformation of simulated networks containing cross-links that undergo repeated, serial…
The non-linear behavior of human erythrocytes subjected to shear stress was analyzed using data series from the Erythrocyte Rheometer and a theoretical model was developed. Linear behavior was eliminated by means of a slot filter and a…
Blood viscosity decreases with shear stress, a property essential for an efficient perfusion of the vascular tree. Shear-thinning is intimately related to the dynamics and mutual interactions of red blood cells (RBCs), the major…
Living cells respond to mechanical changes in the matrix surrounding them by applying contractile forces that are in turn transmitted to distant cells. We calculate the mechanical work that each cell performs in order to deform the matrix,…
Blood is a complex suspension that demonstrates several non-Newtonian rheological characteristics such as deformation-rate dependency, viscoelasticity and yield stress. In this paper we outline some issues related to the non-Newtonian…
Via molecular dynamics simulations of a generic glass former in the supercooled and normal liquid states, it is shown that spatial correlations of strain fluctuations exhibit a crossover from the well-established power-law $\sim…
Animal cells are active, contractile objects. While bioassays address the molecular characterization of cell contractility, the mechanical characterization of the active forces in cells remains challenging. Here by confronting theoretical…
Wrinkling of an inextensible elastic lining of an inner-lined tube under imposed pressure is considered. A simple equation modeling the elastic properties of the lining, the pressure, and the soft-substrate forces is derived. This equation…
Many thixo-viscoelastic materials have been reported to undergo enhancement in elastic modulus with time and decrease in the same under application of deformation field. Incorporation of this feature in a viscoelastic structural kinetic…
The ability of cells to undergo reversible shape changes is often crucial to their survival. For Red Blood Cells (RBCs), irreversible alteration of the cell shape and flexibility often causes anemia. Here we show theoretically that RBCs may…
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is currently used to design and improve the hydraulic properties of biomedical devices, wherein the large scale blood circulation needs to be simulated by accounting for the mechanical response of red…
Creep tests on heterogeneous materials under subcritical loading typically show a power-law decaying strain rate before failure, with the exponent often considered material-dependent but independent of applied stress. By imposing successive…
Biological cells can actively tune their intracellular architecture according to their overall shape. Here we explore the rheological implication of such coupling in a minimal model of a dense cellular material where each cell exerts an…
We show how strain stiffening affects the elastic response to internal forces, caused either by material defects and inhomogeneities or by active forces that molecular motors generate in living cells. For a spherical force dipole in a…
We developed a physics-based analytical model to describe the nonlinear mechanical response of aspirated elastic shells. By representing the elastic energy through a stretching modulus, $K$, and a dimensionless ratio, $\delta$, capturing…
Modeling liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) at the molecular level is crucial for the predictable design of energy-conversion and stimuli-responsive materials. Here, we develop a self-consistent field theory for LCEs which captures the…
The nature of blood as a suspension of red blood cells makes computational hemodynamics a demanding task. Our coarse-grained blood model, which builds on a lattice Boltzmann method for soft particle suspensions, enables the study of the…
The multi-cellular hydrodynamic interactions play a critical role in the phenomenology of blood flow in the microcirculation. A fast algorithm has been developed to simulate large numbers of cells modeled as elastic thin membranes. For red…
The elastic behavior of materials operating in the linear regime is constrained, by definition, to operations that are linear in the imposed deformation. Though the nonlinear regime holds promise for new functionality, the design in this…