Thursday, November 30, @ 11 a.m. – noon
Held in ETRL 101
Refreshments served in ETRL 119 at 10:30 a.m.
Mr. Adnan Morshed
PhD Candidate, School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering,
Washington State University
Modeling of Biomechanical Systems in Microfluidic Device
Abstract
Electrodeformation of vesicles can be used as a useful tool to understand the characteristics of biological soft matter. Microfluidic devices are especially useful in this regard where the vesicles immersed in a fluid medium are subjected to an applied electric field. With minimal effort, a lot of intricate geometry can be imprinted in microfluidic chips which allows to observe the shift in vesicle deformation behavior. Modeling this kind of physical system requires consideration of both electric and hydrodynamic descriptions. The complex response of the vesicle membrane strongly depends on the conductivity of surrounding fluid, vesicle size and shape, and applied electric field. We studied the electrodeformation of vesicles immersed in a fluid media under a short DC electric pulse. An immersed interface method is used to solve the electric field over the domain with conductive or non-conductive vesicles while an immersed boundary scheme is employed to solve fluid flow, fluid-solid interaction, membrane mechanics and vesicle movement. Force analysis on the membrane surface reveals almost linear relation with vesicle size, but highly nonlinear influence of applied field as well as the conductivity ratios inside and outside of the vesicle. Results also point towards an early linear deformation regime followed by an equilibrium stage for the membranes. Moreover, significant influence of the initial aspect ratio of the vesicle on the force distribution is observed across a range of conductivity ratios.
Biography
Adnan Morshed is in the third year of his PhD program at MME. His primary research interest is in the modeling of micro- and nanoscale biological phenomena. At present, his research is focused on the numerical exploration of experimentally hard to reach terrains in soft biological vesicles and studying key biophysical pathways in cancer propagation. He completed his B.Sc. and M.Sc. in mechanical engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET).
Adnan enjoys computer programming and is fascinated with typography. He loves hiking and exploring the beautiful northwest.
