HemoCell

HemoCell is a parallel computing framework for simulation of dense deformable capsule suspensions, with special emphasis on blood flows and blood related vesicles (cells). The library implements validated mechanical models for Red Blood Cells (RBCs) and is capable of reproducing emergent transport characteristics of such complex cellular systems [1]. HemoCell is capable of handling large simulation domain sizes and high shear-rate flows providing a virtual environment to evaluate a wide palette of microfluidic scenarios [2, 3, 4].

For the simulation of dense flows, HemoCell employs the Immersed Boundary Method (IBM) to couple the immersed vesicles, e.g. RBCs, platelets (PLTs), leukocytes, or other custom cell types to the fluid (e.g., plasma). The particles are tracked using a Lagrangian discrete element approach, while the flow field is implemented using the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM). The current implementation is based on the Palabos library. HemoCell manages all required data structures, such as materials and cell models (particles), their interactions within the flow field, load-balancing, and communication among the processors.

The library provides validated and highly optimised mechanical models for the simulation of red blood cells [5, 6]. Furthermore, the library is extensible and allows to implement different mechanical (cell) models [7, 8] and cell-binding techniques [9] to study numerous application-specific behaviour.

Code structure of HemoCell

The code is implemented in C/C++ with parallelism achieved through MPI, although only for advanced use-cases the users are required to interact with the parallelism, which is otherwise hidden from the user. The system is build with CMake and runs on a variety of systems and HPC clusters (see getting started).

Multiple examples are provided to illustrate typical use-cases of HemoCell:

  • Developing mechanical models for different cell types and their interaction. These are typically quick running simulations on single processors (order of seconds to minutes) that aim to investigate/validate different formulations of mechanical models for the immersed cells, e.g. shearing, stretching, or “parachuting” of a single cell. Additionally, one might want to study the interaction between colliding particles, e.g. Colliding cells with interior viscosity.

    _images/rbc-plt-trajectory.png _images/parachuting-sideview.png
  • Studying large simulation domains with large number of immersed particles. These simulations are typically derived from straight channel flow conditions, where the domain size, number of immersed particles, and flow conditions are varied. These simulations can vary from quick running simulations on small hardware (desktop/workstation) to long lasting simulations on large HPC compute clusters with thousands of cores. Examples of smaller pipe flow cases are presented in Pipe flow and Pipe flow with periodic inflow.

    _images/pipeflow-initial.png _images/pipeflow-large.jpg

When using HemoCell please cite the corresponding HemoCell paper(s) [1].

User Guide

Acknowledgments

HemoCell is developed and maintained by the following persons, where any questions can be directed towards: info@hemocell.eu.

Gábor Závodszky

Developer and Co-PI

G.Zavodszky at uva.nl

Alfons Hoekstra

Co-PI

Ben Czaja

Developer

B.E.Czaja at uva.nl

Christian Spieker

Developer

C.J.Spieker at uva.nl

Mark Wijzenbroek

Package maintainer

Max van der Kolk

Former developer

Lampros Mountrakis

Former developer

Victor Azizi

Former developer

Britt van Rooij

Former developer

Saad Allowayyed

Former developer

Daan van Ingen

Former contributor

Hendrik Cornelisse

Former contributor

Mike de Haan

Former contributor

Kevin de Vries

Former contributor

Jonathan de Bouter

Former contributor

Roland Joo-Kovacs

Former contributor

Citing HemoCell

When using HemoCell please cite the HemoCell paper:

@article{Zavodszky:2017,
  author={Závodszky, Gábor and van Rooij, Britt and Azizi, Victor and Hoekstra, Alfons},
  title={Cellular Level In-silico Modeling of Blood Rheology with An Improved Material Model for Red Blood Cells},
  journal={Frontiers in Physiology},
  volume={8},
  pages={563},
  year={2017},
  url={https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fphys.2017.00563},
  doi={10.3389/fphys.2017.00563},
  issn={1664-042X},
}