Forced transport of deformable containers through narrow constrictions

Abstract

We study, numerically and analytically, the forced transport of deformable containers through a narrow constriction. Our central aim is to quantify the competition between the constriction geometry and the active forcing, regulating whether and at which speed a container may pass through the constriction and under what conditions it gets stuck. We focus, in particular, on the interrelation between the force that propels the container and the radius of the channel, as these are the external variables that may be directly controlled in both artificial and physiological settings. We present Lattice-Boltzmann simulations that elucidate in detail the various phases of translocation, and present simplified analytical models that treat two limiting types of these membrane containers: deformational energy dominated by the bending or stretching contribution. In either case we find excellent agreement with the full simulations, and our results reveal that not only the radius but also the length of the constriction determines whether or not the container will pass.

9 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (2)

• Efficient and accurate simulations of deformable particles immersed in a fluid using a combined immersed boundary lattice Boltzmann finite element method
• Quantitative analysis of numerical estimates for the permeability of porous media from lattice-Boltzmann simulations

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Axisymmetric flow due to a Stokeslet near a finite-sized elastic membrane
• Dynamics of Vesicles Driven Into Closed Constrictions by Molecular Motors
• Multiscale Model of Clogging in Microfluidic Devices with Grid-Like Geometries
• Squeezing multiple soft particles into a constriction: transition to clogging