Energetic variational approaches in modeling vesicle and fluid interactions (Q2389370)

The authors present a hydrodynamic system to study vesicle deformations under external flow fields. The system is in the Eulerian formulation, involving the coupling of the incompressible flow system and a phase field equation. The phase field mixing energy can be viewed as a physical approximation/regularization of the Helfrich energy for an elastic membrane. Using an energetic variational approach, the authors derive a self-consistent system of equations describing the dynamic evolution of vesicles immersed in an incompressible Newtonian fluid. The effectiveness of this approach is illustrated numerically on the Helfrich energy, without incorporating contributions from the spontaneous curvature and Gaussian curvatures, for constant density. The paper opens a way to numerical simulations of membrane deformations in flow fields.