Viscoelasticity of blood and viscoelastic blood analogues for use in polydymethysyloxane in vitro models of the circulatory system

Laura Campo-Deaño, Roel P. Dullens, Dirk Aarts, F.T. Pinho, Monica Oliveira

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

119 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The non-Newtonian properties of blood are of great importance since they are closely related with incident cardiovascular diseases. A good understanding of the hemodynamics through the main vessels of the human circulatory system is thus fundamental in the detection and especially in the treatment of these diseases. Very often such studies take place in vitro for convenience and better flow control and these generally require blood analogue solutions that not only adequately mimic the viscoelastic properties of blood but also minimize undesirable optical distortions arising from vessel curvature that could interfere in flow visualizations or particle image velocimetry measurements. In this work, we present the viscoelastic moduli of whole human blood obtained by means of passive microrheology experiments. These results and existing shear and extensional rheological data for whole human blood in the literature enabled us to develop solutions with rheological behavior analogous to real whole blood and with a refractive index suited for PDMS (polydymethylsiloxane) micro- and milli-channels. In addition, these blood analogues can be modified in order to obtain a larger range of refractive indices from 1.38 to 1.43 to match the refractive index of several materials other than PDMS.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)Article 034102
JournalBiomicrofluidics
Volume7
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 17 May 2013

Keywords

  • viscoelasticity
  • blood analogue fluid
  • polydimethysiloxane (PDMS)
  • circulation modelling

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Viscoelasticity of blood and viscoelastic blood analogues for use in polydymethysyloxane in vitro models of the circulatory system'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this