A wide body of experimental evidence shows that flowing suspensions of rigid and deformable particles exhibit particle migration with a general trend showing migration from regions of higher shear rate to regions of lower shear rate. Red blood cells (RBCs) also show this behaviour and their migration to the centre of micro and small vessels (micrometre to millimetre size) has been the subject of intense study. RBC migration exerts its influence primarily on platelet concentration, oxygen transport and oxygen availability at the luminal surface, which could influence vessel wall disease processes in and adjacent to the intima.

The migration behaviour, if borrowed to engineered systems, will have great potential to reduce pumping power when particles are carried by liquid for transportation as the particles in the pipeline tend to stay away from the wall with reduced friction. This biomimetic idea inspired this project to explore the flow behaviour of capsules that are manufactured into RBC shape in the carrier fluid using numerical tools.

Please contact Dr Shannon Wang (xiaolin.wang@anu.edu.au) if you are interested and have experience in CFD modelling.