A microfluidic methodology to identify the mechanical properties of capsules: comparison with a microrheometric approach

We present a microfluidic method to measure the elastic properties of a population of microcapsules (liquid drops enclosed by a thin hyperelastic membrane). The method is based on the observation of flowing capsules in a cylindrical capillary tube and an automatic inverse analysis of the deformed pr...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Flow (Cambridge, England) England), 2021-01, Vol.1, Article E8
Main Authors: Wang, Xing-Yi, Merlo, Adlan, Dupont, Claire, Salsac, Anne-Virginie, Barthès-Biesel, Dominique
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Capillary tubes
Capsule/cell dynamics
Deformation
Drops (liquids)
Elastic properties
Fluid-structure interaction
Fluid–structure interaction modelling
Hookes law
Mathematical models
Mechanical identification
Mechanical properties
Membranes
Methods
Microfluidics
Numerical models
Ovalbumin
Quality control
Rheological measurements
Strain hardening
Viscosity
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:We present a microfluidic method to measure the elastic properties of a population of microcapsules (liquid drops enclosed by a thin hyperelastic membrane). The method is based on the observation of flowing capsules in a cylindrical capillary tube and an automatic inverse analysis of the deformed profiles. The latter requires results from a full numerical model of the fluid–structure interaction accounting for nonlinear membrane elastic properties. For ease of use, we provide them under the form of databases, when the initially spherical capsule has a membrane governed by a neo-Hookean or a general Hooke's law with different surface Poisson ratios. Ultimately, the microfluidic method yields information on the type of elastic constitutive law that governs the capsule wall material together with the value of the elastic parameters. The method is applied to a population of ovalbumin microcapsules and is validated by means of independent experiments of the same capsules subjected to a different flow in a microrheological device. This is of great interest for quality control purposes, as small samples of capsule suspensions can be diverted to a measuring test section and mechanically tested with a 10 % precision using an automated process.
ISSN:2633-4259
2633-4259
DOI:10.1017/flo.2021.8