ABSTRACT

The Red Blood Cells (RBCs) occupy the highest percentage of the blood’s volume. These cells have a very important biological function since they are responsible for the oxygenation of all the tissues of the body. In certain pathologies, the biomechanical properties of RBCs appear to be altered. The treatment of these pathologies is often expensive and not always effective. In this work, it was constructed a three-dimensional model of an RBC. Two different boundary conditions were applied to the virtual model of the cell and several output variables were analysed, such as the displacement, the Von Mises effective stress and the equivalent strain. Two numerical methods were used: The Finite Element Method (FEM) and the Radial Point Interpolation Method (RPIM)—a meshless method. Comparing the results of both techniques, it was possible to conclude that meshless methods are capable to provide smoother stress/strain fields.