AGGREGATION OF ERYTHROCYTES INTO COLUMNAR STRUCTURES ("ROULEAUX") AND THE RHEOLOGY OF BLOOD
L. A. Faitelson and E. E. Jakobsons UDC 532.695:678-19 The liquid-crystalline order of the structure of blood, which is determined by the aggregation of erythrocytes into "rouleaux," i.e., liquid-crystalline domains, is considered. The form of the viscosity-rate of shear flow curve, specific for liquid-crystalline polymers, and the scaling regularities of the concentration dependence of the initial viscosity of erythrocyte suspensions are noted. An example of description and a prediction of the rheological functions of blood by the phenomenological model of an anisotropic viscoelastic liquid are given. Institute of Polymer Mechanics, Latvian University, Riga, Latvia; email: laf@edi.lv. Translated from Inzhenerno-Fizicheskii Zhurnal, Vol. 76, No. 3, pp. 214-225, May-June, 2003. Original article submitted January 27, 2003.