Blood viscosity estimation in a capillary microchannel

Abstract

Capillary viscometry can be a practical technique to provide viscosity estimates for small volumes of fluids The viscosity can be estimated if the pressure drop, the flow rate and the length of the capillary are known Non Newtonian models can be incorporated By considering the propagation of the flow in the capillary and accepting a power law approximation for blood viscosity, the consistency index and exponent can by estimated The aim of this work, was to estimate the viscosity of various blood samples, for flows in a converging, rectangular microfluidic channel The calculated viscosity was compared with the viscosity measurements produced using a commercial instrument