Numerical simulation of cell motility is one of the difficult problems in computational science. It belongs to a class of problems which involve moving interfaces between flowing or deforming media. Different numerical techniques are being developed for different application areas and in this work an attempt is made to apply two popular numerical techniques used in the field of computational multiphase flows to a cell motility problem. An unsteady cell motility problem is considered to simulate numerically based on a two-dimensional mathematical model. Two important numerical methods, the Level set method and the Front tracking methods are applied to the cell motility problem to study several cases and to verify the convergence of the solution. With the assumption of no mechanical or physical obstructions to the cell, the results of the numerical simulations show that the domain shapes converge to a circular shape as they reach the steady state condition. The final steady state velocities with which the domains move and the final steady state area to which they converge are observed to be independent of domain shapes. Moreover all shapes converge to exactly same radius of circle and move with same velocity after reaching steady state condition.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:wpi.edu/oai:digitalcommons.wpi.edu:etd-theses-1709 |
| Date | 04 May 2007 |
| Creators | Vuta, Ravi K |
| Contributors | Cosme Furlong, Committee Member, Mark W. Richman, Committee Member, Gretar Tryggvason, Advisor, Roger Lui |
| Publisher | Digital WPI |
| Source Sets | Worcester Polytechnic Institute |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Masters Theses (All Theses, All Years) |
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