Flow-induced deformation of an elastic membrane adhering to a wall

The flow-induced deformation of a two-dimensional membrane with a circular unstressed shape clamped at the two ends on a plane wall at an arbitrary contact angle is considered. Working under the auspices of generalized shell theory, the membrane is allowed to develop in-plane tensions, transverse tensions, and bending moments determined by the curvature of the resting and deformed shapes. A system of ordinary differential equations governing the membrane shape is formulated, and the associated boundary-value problem is solved by numerical methods. Numerical results are presented to illustrate the deformation of a clamped membrane due to gravity or a negative transmural pressure. The shell formulation is coupled with a boundary-integral formulation for Stokes flow, and an efficient iterative scheme is developed to describe deformed equilibrium shapes of a membrane attached to a plane wall in the presence of an overpassing shear flow. Computations for different contact angles and shear rates reveal a wide variety of profiles and illustrate the distribution of the membrane tension developing due to the flow-induced deformation. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.