✍ Scribed by Song-I Han; Oliver Marseille; Christa Gehlen; Bernhard Blümich
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
Pipe flow of blood in tubes of 1 and 7 mm inner diameter, respectively, was investigated employing two-dimensional NMR velocity imaging and PFG propagator measurements at different Reynolds numbers between 10 and 3500. The results are compared to flow of a water/glycerol mixture of matching viscosity under identical conditions. The transition from laminar to turbulent flow is observed by both a flattening of the velocity profile and a change of the propagator shape. For blood flow this transition is found to be shifted toward higher Reynolds numbers as compared to the transition of the water/glycerol mixture. This observation is in agreement with predictions from hydraulic measurements and is a consequence of the non-Newtonian flow characteristics of blood as a suspension of erythrocytes and plasma. Likewise, a deviation from the laminar flow condition is observed for blood at low Reynolds numbers between 10 and 100. This phenomenon is unknown for Newtonian liquids and is explained by the onset of a geometrical arrangement of the erythrocytes, the so-called rouleaux effect.
📜 SIMILAR VOLUMES
The blood flow property is one of the factors determining blood perfusion and oxygen supply. The viscosity of the blood is primarily related to the hematocrit, but also to the amount of fibrinogen and other macromolecules present in the blood. Patients with ischemic heart disease have shown a rapid