Dresden 2017 – scientific programme

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CPP: Fachverband Chemische Physik und Polymerphysik

CPP 6: Focus: Soft Particles in Flows I (joint focus session CPP/DY)

CPP 6.2: Talk

Monday, March 20, 2017, 10:45–11:00, ZEU 160

A new look at blood shear-thinning — Luca Lanotte¹, Johannes Mauer², Simon Mendez³, Dmitry Fedosov², Jean-Marc Fromental⁴, Viviana Claveria¹, Franck Nicoud³, Gerhard Gompper², and •Manouk Abkarian¹ — ¹Centre de Biochimie Structurale, Montpellier, France — ²Institute of Complex Systems and Institute for Advanced Simulation, Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany — ³Institut Montpelliérain Alexander Grothendieck, Montpellier, France — ⁴Laboratooire Charles Coulomb, Montpellier, France

Blood viscosity decreases with shear stress, a property essential for an efficient perfusion of the vascular tree. Shear-thinning is intimately related to the dynamics and mutual interactions of red blood cells (RBCs), the major component of blood. Because of the lack of knowledge about their behavior under physiological conditions, the link between RBCs dynamics and blood rheology remains still unsettled. Performing experiments and simulations in microcirculatory flow conditions of viscosity, shear rates and volume fractions, our work reveals how rich RBCs dynamic morphologies govern blood shear thinning, contrary to the current paradigm assuming steady RBC orientation and membrane circulation. Our results suggest that any pathological change in RBCs* local rheology will impact the onset of these morphological transitions and should play a key role in pathological blood flow.