Abstract
It could be shown experimentally that human plasma as well as human blood behave rheologically like visco-elastic fluids: they both show a significant friction reduction in turbulent pipe-flow. Furthermore, at extremely low shear-rates blood viscosity becomes constant (zero-shear viscosity). Thus, the hypothesis that blood has a yield shear–stress cannot be maintained. The temperature dependence of plasma viscosity could be mathematically described based on the results of experiments.
For diagnostic purposes, plasma and blood viscosity are correlated to normal values at selected shear-rates. The clinical significance of the measured values will be shown by the examples of myocardial infarction and von-Willebrand–Jürgens syndrome.
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