Affiliations: Centre for Atmospheric Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Hauz Khas, New Delhi, India | Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA
Note: [] Address for correspondence: Professor Maithili Sharan, Centre for Atmospheric Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Hauz Khas, New Delhi 110016, India. Fax: +91 11 686 2037; E‐mail: [email protected].
Abstract: A two‐phase model for the flow of blood in narrow tubes is described. The model consists of a central core of suspended erythrocytes and a cell‐free layer surrounding the core. It is assumed that the viscosity in the cell‐free layer differs from that of plasma as a result of additional dissipation of energy near the wall caused by the red blood cell motion near the cell‐free layer. A consistent system of nonlinear equations is solved numerically to estimate: (i) the effective dimensionless viscosity in the cell‐free layer (β), (ii) thickness of the cell‐free layer (1−λ) and (iii) core hematocrit (Hc). We have taken the variation of apparent viscosity (μapp) and tube hematocrit with the tube diameter (D) and the discharge hematocrit (HD) from in vitro experimental studies [16]. The thickness of the cell‐free layer computed from the model is found to be in agreement with the observations [3,21]. Sensitivity analysis has been carried out to study the behavior of the parameters 1−λ, β, Hc, B (bluntness of the velocity profile) and μapp with the variation of D and HD.
