LUBRICATION OF RED BLOOD CELLS IN NARROW CAPILLARIES -
A HEURISTIC APPROACH

Mircea D. PASCOVICI

mircea@meca.omtr.pub.ro

"Politehnica" University of Bucharest, Romania

Abstract. An elastohydrodynamic (EHD) approach to the lubrication of red cells moving in narrow capillaries, by taking into consideration the effect of highly compressible porous endothelial glycocalyx is advanced.
The paper proposes a complex model, using a somehow heuristic approach, leading to analytical solutions, for the lubricant film thickness and for the correlation between the red cells speed and the pressure drop, for different capillary diameters. The numerical results agree well with the experimental and theoretical data from the literature.
 

Keywords: EHD lubrication, red-cells, narrow capillaries, endothelial layer