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Asymmetric shapes and pearling of a stretched vesicle

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 July 2014

Petia M. Vlahovska
Petia M. Vlahovska*
Affiliation:
School of Engineering, Brown University, Providence, RI 02906, USA
*
†Email address for correspondence: [email protected]
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Abstract

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Closed bilayer membranes (vesicles) display a plethora of non-spherical shapes under equilibrium conditions, unlike drops and bubbles which are kept spherical by surface tension. Even more complex behaviour arises under applied flow. Intriguingly, a vesicle can adopt asymmetric shapes even under symmetric forcing such as uniaxial extensional flow. Narasimhan, Spann & Shaqfeh (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 750, 2014, pp. 144–190) explain the mechanism of this peculiar instability and trace its origin to the tension which develops in the area-incompressible membrane in response to the applied stress. The authors also show that this mechanism is relevant to the pearling of tubular vesicles. This study raises many questions, e.g. whether other soft particles with load-dependent tension such as capsules can undergo similar shape transformations.

JFM classification

Instability: Instability
Type
Focus on Fluids
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 754 , 10 September 2014 , pp. 1 - 4
Copyright
© 2014 Cambridge University Press 

References

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