Micro Viscometer for Measuring Shear Varying Blood Viscosity over a Wide Ranging Shear Rate
In this study, a micro viscometer is developed for measuring shear varying blood viscosity over a wide ranging shear rate. The micro viscometer consists of 10 microfluidic channel arrays, each of which has a different micro channel width. The proposed design enables the retrieval of 10 different shear rates from a single flow rate, thereby enabling the measurement of shear varying blood viscosity with a fixed flow rate condition. For this purpose, an optimal design that guarantees accurate viscosity measurement is selected from a parametric study. The functionality of the micro viscometer is verified by both numerical and experimental studies. The proposed micro viscometer shows 6.8% (numerical) and 5.3% (experimental) in relative error when compared to the result from a standard rotational viscometer. Moreover, a reliability test is performed by repeated measurement (N 7) and the result shows 2.69 2.19% for the mean relative error. Accurate viscosity measurements are performed on blood samples with variations in the hematocrit (35% 45% and 55% which significantly influences blood viscosity. Since the blood viscosity correlated with various physical parameters of the blood, the micro viscometer is anticipated to be a significant advancement for realization of blood on a chip.
Sensors