Multiscale modeling of circular and elliptical particles in laminar shear flow

Abstract

Drug delivery systems for cancer prevention and pain management have been improved related to classical cancer chemotherapy. Nanotechnology with nanoparticles offers new ways in transport of drug molecules and contrast agents by the blood flow through the circulatory system. In this study, we use multiscale mesoscopic bridging procedure of the finite elements (FE) coupled with dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) and lattice Boltzmann (LB) method to model the motion of circular and elliptical particles in a 2-D laminar flow. Four examples are considered: 1) one sedimenting cylinder in a channel, 2) two sedimenting cylinders in a channel, 3) motion of four elliptical particles in a linear shear flow, and 4) motion of circular and elliptical particle in the arterial bifurcation geometry. A good agreement with solution from the literature available was found. These results show that the multiscale approach with coupled FE and DPD/LB methods can effectively be applied to model motion of micro/nanoparticles for a drug delivery system. © 2011 IEEE.