Blood flow in non uniform tapered capillary tubes¹

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Charm, Stanley | Kurland, George

Affiliations: Tufts University Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts

Note: [1] This work was supported by PHS Grant HE 08783-02.

Abstract: Blood flow in tapered tubes may be analyzed by considering a tapered tube to consist of segments of straight tubes. This has been shown to result in the same equation as that developed by Bond [Phil. Mag. 50, 1058, 1925], for uniform tapered tubes. When flow is toward the converging section, theoretical and experimental results are in close agreement. In tubes of relatively large diameter where the influence of a marginal gap is negligible, experimental values agree well with the anticipated values. Under conditions where the influence of a marginal gap becomes important in cylindrical tubes, the calculated and anticipated values diverge unless the probable gap width based on formulae validated in straight tubes are considered in the calculation. This strongly suggests that marginal layers develop in tapered tubes similar to those in straight tubes.

DOI: 10.3233/BIR-1967-4404

Journal: Biorheology, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 175-183, 1967