Development of a finite elements tool, for determining the mechanoelastic properties of the red blood cell

In this paper a finite elements analysis tool is presented that has been developed in order to achieve a full simulation of the Red Blood Cell (RBC) motion and deformation in the circulation. Hence this tool is used to test the theoretically proposed constitutive relations that describe the mechanoelastic properties of the RBC. Consequently, it opens the way for finding the optimum constitutive relations that best fits the actual, observed in vivo RBC properties and its deformed RBC shapes. Here, the first results are shown, namely the RBC shape deformation during motion in free running plasma, for a specific set of constitutive equations concerning both the membrane and the cytoplasm too.