Abstract
In shear flows, vesicles like a red blood cell(RBC) change their shape in response to the local flow conditions. In the present work, a numerical simulation of vesicles in shear flows was conducted. The immersed-boundary method was used to simulate the deformation of vesicles. At first, the motion of a liposome in a simple shear flow was studied. In a simple shear flow, a liposome showed tank-treading motion. Our results were quantitatively in good agreement with the numerical results obtained by Kraus et al. and experimental results obtained by Hatakenaka et al. Then, numerical simulation of red blood cells in a cylindrical channel was conducted. In a cylindrical channel, red blood cells deformed their shapes to parachute-like shapes.
