Rheology of dilute suspensions of vesicles and red blood cells

Abstract

We present rheology experiments on dilute solutions of vesicles and red blood cells (RBC). Varying the viscosity ratio $λ$ between internal and external fluids, the microscopic dynamics of suspended objects can be qualitatively changed from tank-treading ($tt$) to tumbling ($tb$). We find that in the tt regime the viscosity $η$, decreases when $λ$ increases, in contrast with droplet emulsions and elastic capsule theories which are sometimes invoked to model RBC dynamics. At a critical $λ$ (close to the tt-tb transition) $η$ exhibits a minimum before it increases in the tb regime. This is consistent with a recent theory for vesicles. This points to the nontrivial fact that the cytoskeleton in RBC does not alter the qualitative evolution of $η$ and that, as far as rheology is concerned, vesicle models might be a better description.