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Blood rheology in shear and uniaxial elongation

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Abstract

Despite being at the same time a very common and precious fluid, the rheological properties of blood have not been thoroughly investigated. In this manuscript, the rheology of swine blood is characterized. The rheology study is performed in shear flow and in uniaxial elongation. Measurements show that blood is a shear-thinning and viscoelastic fluid. The relaxation time and elongational viscosity of blood are measured. The relaxation time is found in agreement with a recent measurement by Brust et al. (2013). It is shown for the first time that the elongational viscosity can be 1000 times higher than the shear viscosity. Implications in biology and forensics are described.

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Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge financial support from the US National Institute of Justice (award NIJ 2014-DN-BX-K036).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, 60607-7022, USA

    Alexander Kolbasov, Patrick M. Comiskey, Rakesh Prasad Sahu, Suman Sinha-Ray & Alexander L. Yarin

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, 50011, USA

    Basant Singh Sikarwar, Sungu Kim, Talukder Zaki Jubery & Daniel Attinger

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  1. Alexander Kolbasov
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  2. Patrick M. Comiskey
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  3. Rakesh Prasad Sahu
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  4. Suman Sinha-Ray
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  5. Alexander L. Yarin
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  6. Basant Singh Sikarwar
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  7. Sungu Kim
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  8. Talukder Zaki Jubery
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  9. Daniel Attinger
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Correspondence to Alexander L. Yarin or Daniel Attinger.

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Kolbasov, A., Comiskey, P.M., Sahu, R.P. et al. Blood rheology in shear and uniaxial elongation. Rheol Acta 55, 901–908 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00397-016-0964-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00397-016-0964-1

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