Computer Modeling of Blood Flow, Rheology and Red Cell Dynamics in the Microcirculation-A Review

摘要

We review the state-of-the-art in computer modeling of the microcirculation. While much work has been done and progress has been made in simulating sigle-file motion of deformable red blood cells (RBCs) in capillaries and of diluted sheared suspensions of RBCs in infinite domains, detailed understanding of the mechanics of blood flow in microvessels larger than capillaries but smaller than 1 mm has presented formidable challenges, largely because of the inherent difficulties encountered in modeling the motion of multiple interacting highly deformable particles. The current computational tools consist mainly of three-dimensional boundary-integral methods for single RBC's dynamics and deformation, and of three-dimensional boundary-integral algorithms for rheology of large systems of droplets at very large volume fractions using periodic boundary conditions and novel adaptive computational meshes. Further advance will require, in the short term, combining these tools to produce new algorithms capable of describing the motion and deformation of large systems of RBCs in microvessels at physiologically relevant volume fractions (ca. 45%).