A Two-Zone Shear-Induced Red Blood Cell Migration Model for Blood Flow in Microvessels

The Fåhraeus and Fåhraeus-Lindqvist effects are both associated with the concentration of red blood cells (RBCs) in the core region of microvessels. The annular region is a cell-free layer. Blood flow dynamics and both effects are related to the hematocrit level profile. The aim is to propose a model for blood flow in microvessels that is not compute intensive like many other models such as those using finite element methods. Modeling blood flow requires solving for both the hematocrit level and velocity profiles as blood viscosity depends on the hematocrit level. The two-zone shear-induced model for blood flow is adopted while including an annular cell-free layer, as in the marginal zone theory and in consistency with experimental observations. In the core region, the hematocrit level is not considered to be uniform, and the concentration and viscous fluxes are equal in magnitude and opposite in directions in the fully developed velocity and concentration profiles case. The momentum and hematocrit balance equations are solved. Both analytical and numerical solutions for the velocity and hematocrit level profiles are determined. The numerical results are found to exactly match the analytical solutions, and to be in very good agreement with published experimental data for the cell-free layer thickness, the velocity profile, and the hematocrit ratio.