Deformation and orientation of a capsule with viscosity contrast in linear flows: a theoretical study

Abstract

We develop a perturbation theory to study the shape and the orientation of an initially spherical capsule of radius R with a viscosity contrast, a surface tension σ and a bending rigidity $κ$ in linear flows. The elastic mechanical response of membrane to deformations is described by three elastic constitutive law which are either Hookean, Neohookean or Skalak type leading to the introduction of a surface shear elastic modulus $G_s$ and the Poisson ratio (or analog quantities). At the leading order, the deformation, i.e. the so-called Taylor parameter is proportional to the elastic capillary number Ca which evaluates the ratio between the external viscous stress and the elastic membrane response. In this linear regime, the results do not depend on the elastic constitutive law as expected. Without surface tension and bending rigidity, we recover the results of Barthes-Biesel & Rallison (1981) and notably the fact that the Taylor parameter does not depend on the viscosity contrast $λ$ contrary to the case of a viscous droplet. In our more general model, the deformation does no longer depend on $λ$ at the upper order. Now, the Taylor parameter also depends on two other dimensionless numbers: the surface elastocapillary ratio $σ/G_s$ and the dimensionless bending rigidity $B= κ/G_sR^2$. At the further order, the angle of inclination of the capsule with the direction of the shear flow, the analog of the Chaffey and Brenner equation for droplets is determined in each case. The results are in excellent agreement with the numerical ones performed with a code based on the boundary integral method providing an useful method to valid numerical developments.