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Phase Behavior of Charged Vesicles Under Symmetric and Asymmetric Solution Conditions Monitored with Fluorescence Microscopy
Published on: October 24, 2017
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Dynamics of a multicomponent vesicle in shear flow.
Kai Liu1, Gary R Marple2, Jun Allard3
1Department of Mathematics, University of California at Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA. lowengrb@math.uci.edu.
Soft Matter
|April 26, 2017
Summary
Multicomponent vesicles exhibit novel phase-treading and tumbling dynamics in shear flow, unlike homogeneous vesicles. These findings reveal complex fluid dynamics due to heterogeneous material properties.
Area of Science:
- Fluid dynamics
- Soft matter physics
- Biophysics
Background:
- Vesicle dynamics in shear flow are crucial for understanding biological and synthetic systems.
- Homogeneous vesicles exhibit well-defined tank-treading dynamics.
- Inhomogeneous properties can significantly alter vesicle behavior.
Purpose of the Study:
- Investigate the nonlinear dynamics of two-dimensional multicomponent vesicles in shear flow.
- Explore novel dynamical patterns induced by inhomogeneous bending.
- Characterize phase-treading and tumbling mechanisms in multicomponent systems.
Main Methods:
- Utilized a nonstiff, pseudo-spectral boundary integral method for numerical simulations.
- Studied a two-phase system with matched inner and outer fluid viscosity.
- Analyzed vesicle behavior under varying excess length, shear rate, and soft phase concentration.
Main Results:
- Discovered novel phase-treading dynamics with unsteady, oscillatory inclination angles.
- Observed tumbling dynamics at low shear rates when average phase concentration is around 1/2.
- Found significantly reduced excess length required for tumbling compared to single-phase vesicles.
Conclusions:
- Multicomponent vesicles display unique dynamic behaviors not seen in homogeneous systems.
- Heterogeneous material properties introduce significant complexity to vesicle dynamics.
- Results extend known vesicle dynamics regimes and provide phase diagrams for predicting behavior.
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