Engineering Simulation of the Viscous Behavior of Whole Blood Using Suspensions of Flexible Particles

Abstract

Highly flexible model red cells were molded of acrylamide gel and suspended in a mixture of castor oil and diiodomethane to produce a neutrally buoyant fluid suspension in which the particles behaved mechanically very much like living erythrocytes. The various suspensions were permitted to flow down long cylindrical tubes while measurements of flow rate and pressure drop were made for various concentrations. The fluid suspensions were found to exhibit non-Newtonian viscous behavior which agrees very well with that of whole blood under comparable conditions. The fluid suspensions also exhibited a yield stress below which particle motion ceases. The yield stress was found to depend strongly on particle concentration, as is the case for whole blood.