• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.34-43
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• 2002

• Korea-Australia Rheology Journal
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.127-133
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• 2009

Hemorheological results may be influenced by the time between blood sampling and measurement, and storage conditions (e.g., temperature, time) during sample delivery between laboratories may further affect the resulting data. This study examined possible hemorheological alterations subsequent to storage of rat and dog blood at room temperature ($22^{\circ}C$) or with cooling ($4{\sim}10^{\circ}C$) for 2, 4, 6, 24, 48 and 72 hours. Measured hemorheological parameters included hematological indices, RBC aggregation and RBC deformability. Our results indicate that marked changes of RBC deformability and of RBC aggregation in whole blood can occur during storage, especially for samples stored at room temperature. The patterns of deformability and aggregation changes at room temperature are complex and species specific, whereas those for storage at the lower temperature range are much less complicated. For room temperature storage, it thus seems logical to suggest measuring rat and dog cell deformability within 6 hours; aggregation should be measured immediately for rat blood or within 6 hours for dog blood. Storage at lower temperatures allows measuring EI up to 72 hours after sampling, while aggregation must be measured immediately, or if willing to accept a constant decrease, over 24~72 hours.

• Korea-Australia Rheology Journal
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.51-65
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• 2006

Of concern in the present theoretical investigation is the study of blood flow and convection-dominated diffusion processes in a model bifurcated artery under stenotic conditions. The geometry of the bifurcated arterial segment having constrictions in both the parent and its daughter arterial lumen frequently appearing in the diseased arteries causing malfunction of the cardiovascular system, is constructed mathematically with the introduction of suitable curvatures at the lateral junction and the flow divider. The streaming blood contained in the bifurcated artery is treated to be Newtonian. The flow dynamical analysis applies the two-dimensional unsteady incompressible nonlinear Wavier-Stokes equations for Newtonian fluid while the mass transport phenomenon is governed by the convection diffusion equation. The motion of the arterial wall and its effect on local fluid mechanics is, however, not ruled out from the present model. The main objective of this study is to demonstrate the effects of constricted flow characteristics and the wall motion on the wall shear stress, the concentration profile and on the mass transfer. The ultimate numerical solutions of the coupled flow and diffusion processes following a radial coordinate transformation are based on an appropriate finite difference technique which attain appreciable stability in both the flow phenomena and the convection-dominated diffusion processes.

• Korea-Australia Rheology Journal
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.101-108
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• 2004

The hemodynamics behavior of the blood flow is influenced by the presence of the arterial stenosis. If the stenosis is present in an artery, normal blood flow is disturbed. In the present study, the characteristics of pulsatile flow in the blood vessel with stenosis are investigated by the finite volume method. For the validation of numerical model, the computation results are compared with the experimental ones of Ojha et al. in the case of 45％ stenosis with a trapezoidal profile. Comparisons between the measured and the computed velocity profiles are favorable to our solutions. Finally, the effects of stenosis severity and wall shear stress are discussed in the present computational analysis. It can be seen, where the non-dimensional peak velocity is displayed for all the stenosis models at a given severity of stenosis, that it is exponentially increased. Although the stenosis and the boundary conditions are all symmetric, the asymmetric flow can be detected in the more than 57％ stenosis. The instability by a three-dimensional symmetry-breaking leads to the asymmetric separation and the intense swirling motion downstream of the stenosis.

• Korea-Australia Rheology Journal
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.117-123
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• 2005

Background: Reduced deformability of red blood cells (RBCs) may play an important role on the pathogenesis of chronic vascular complications of diabetes mellitus. However, available techniques for measuring RBC deformability often require washing process after each measurement, which is not optimal for day­to-day clinical use at point of care. The objectives of the present study are to develop a device and to delineate the correlation of impaired RBC deformability with diabetic nephropathy. Methods: We developed a disposable ektacytometry to measure RBC deformability, which adopted a laser diffraction technique and slit rheometry. The essential features of this design are its simplicity (ease of operation and no moving parts) and a disposable element which is in contact with the blood sample. We studied adult diabetic patients divided into three groups according to diabetic complications. Group I comprised 57 diabetic patients with normal renal function. Group II comprised 26 diabetic patients with chronic renal failure (CRF). Group III consisted of 30 diabetic subjects with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) on hemo-dialysis. According to the renal function for the diabetic groups, matched non-diabetic groups were served as control. Results: We found substantially impaired red blood cell deformability in those with normal renal function (group I) compared to non-diabetic control (P = 0.0005). As renal function decreases, an increased impairment in RBC deformability was found. Diabetic patients with chronic renal failure (group II) when compared to non-diabetic controls (CRF) had an apparently greater impairment in RBC deformability (P = 0.07). The non-diabetic cohort (CRF), on the other hand, manifested significant impairment in red blood cell deformability compared to healthy: control (P = 0.0001). Conclusions: The newly developed slit ektacytometer can measure the RBC deformability with ease and accuracy. In addition, progressive impairment in cell deformability is associated with renal function loss in all patients regardless of the presence or absence of diabetes. In diabetic patients, early impairment in RBC deformability appears in patients with normal renal function.

• Korea-Australia Rheology Journal
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.155-160
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• 2009

Micropore filtration of dilute red blood cell (RBC) suspensions is a widely known method for determining red blood cell deformability. Use of this method for cells from various laboratory animal species does require considering the effects of the cell size to pore size ratio and of suspension hematocrit. In general, previous animal studies have utilized 5% hematocrit suspensions and five micron pores, and thus conditions similar to human clinical laboratory practice. However, when used for repeated sampling from small laboratory animals or for parallel multiple samples from different sites in large laboratory animals, the volume of blood sampled and hence the hematocrit of the test suspension may be limited. Our results indicate that hematocrit levels yielding stable values of RBC pore transit time are pore size and species specific: three micron pores = $2{\sim}5%$ for dog and $3{\sim}5%$ for rat; five micron pores $3{\sim}5%$ for dog and $1{\sim}5%$ for rat. An analytical approach using a common expression for calculating transit time is useful for determining the sensitivity of this time to hematocrit alterations and hence to indicate hematocrit levels that may be problematic.

• Journal of computational fluids engineering
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.81-87
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• 2011

The importance of shear thinning non-Newtonian blood rheology on the hemodynamic characteristics of idealized cerebral saccular aneurysms were investigated by carrying out CFD simulations assuming two different non-Newtonian rheology models (Carreau and Ballyk models). To explore effects of vessel curvature, a straight and a curved vessel geometry were considered. The wall shear stress(WSS), relative residence time(RRT) and velocity distribution were compared at the different phases of cardiac cycle. As expected, blood entered the aneurysm at the distal neck and created large vortex in both aneurysms, but with higher momentum on the curved vessel. Hemodynamic characteristics such as WSS, and RRT exhibited only minor effects by choice of different rheological models although Ballyk model produced relatively higher effects. We conclude that the assumption of Newtonian fluid is reasonable for studies aimed at quantifying the hemodynamic characteristics, in particular, WSS-based parameters, considering the current accuracy level of medical image of cerebral aneurysm.

• Korea-Australia Rheology Journal
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.61-66
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• 2007

The aggregation characteristics of red blood cells (RBCs) are known as important factors in the microvascular flow system, and increased RBC aggregation has been observed in various pathological diseases, such as thrombosis and myocardial infarction. This paper describes a simple microfluidic device for measuring the RBC aggregation by integrating a microfluidic slit rheometry and laser-backscattering technique. While a decreasing-pressure mechanism was applied to the microfluidic rheometry, a syllectogram (the light intensity versus time) showed an initial increase and a peak caused by the high shear stress-induced disaggregation, immediately followed by a decrease in the light intensity due to RBC aggregation. The critical shear stress (CST) corresponding to the peak intensity was examined as a new index of the RBC aggregation characteristics. The CST of RBCs increased with increasing aggregation-dominating protein (fibrinogen) in the blood plasma. The essential feature of this design was the combination of the rheometric-optic characterization of RBC aggregation with a microfluidic chip, which may potentially allow cell aggregation measurements to be easily carried out in a clinical setting.

• International Journal of Vascular Biomedical Engineering
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.7-12
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• 2006

The present study investigated the effects of the osmotic environment on the rheological properties of erythrocytes and their suspensions. In an iso-osmotic medium, erythrocytes forming a biconcave discocyte under resting conditions, exhibited high deformability. In a low-osmotic medium, the deformability of erythrocytes, which swelled and exhibited a spherical shape, significantly decreased at a high shear stress and the high-shear viscosity of the cell suspension was slightly higher than that of normal blood. Hyper-osmotic stress, however, which caused to form echinocytes, decreased cell deformability but exhibited smaller viscosity in low shear rates than iso-osmotic blood viscosity. These results showed a close relation with the aggregability measurements, in that hypertonic blood showed lower aggregability than the hypotonic and isotonic RBC suspensions. These findings indicate that the physicochemical environment has a strong influence on the rheological properties of the erythrocyte and its suspensions.

• Korea-Australia Rheology Journal
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.141-146
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• 2004

Shear-induced damage of Red Blood Cell (RBC) is an imminent problem to be solved for the practical application of artificial organs in extra corporeal circulation, as it often happens and affects physiological homeostasis of a patient. To design and operate artificial organs in a safe mode, many investigations have been set up to correlate shear and shear-induced cell damage. Most studies were focused on hemolysis i.e. the extreme case, however, it is important as well to obtain a clear understanding of pre-hemolytic mechanical damage. In this study, the change in deformability of RBC was measured by ektacytometry to investigate the damage of RBC caused by shear. To a small magnitude of pre-shear, there is little difference, but to a large magnitude of pre-shear, cell damage occurs and the effect of shear becomes significant depending on both the magnitude and imposed time of shearing. The threshold stress for cell damage was found to be approximately 30 Pa, which is much less than the threshold of mechanical hemolysis but is large enough to occur in vitro as in the extra corporeal circulation during open-heart surgery or artificial heart. In conclusion, it was found and suggested that the decrease of deformability can be used as an early indication of cell damage, in contrast to measuring plasma hemoglobin. As cell damage always occurs during flow in artificial organs, the results as well as the approach adopted here will be helpful in the design and operation of artificial organs.