Physics Commons^™

Rheological Characterization Of Blood-Mimicking Fluids For Use In Particle Image Velocimetry, Anorin S. Ali

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

Blood-mimicking fluids (BMFs) are often used to investigate blood flow using physical replicas of vessels with cardiovascular disease. Particle image velocimetry (PIV) is used with silicone poly-dimethyl siloxane (PDMS) vascular models to visualize this flow. The challenge is creating a blood-mimicking fluid that matches the viscosity profile, viscoelasticity, and density of whole blood while also matching the refractive index (RI) of PDMS. Water-glycerol solutions are commonly used with sodium iodide (NaI) added to increase the RI without changing viscosity. However, NaI is expensive, stains easily, and turns fluids from optically clear to yellow in less than a day. Furthermore, without …

Producing And Measuring Oscillatory Shear In A Novel Microfluidic Chip, Sanaz Lordfard, Daniel Lorusso, Tamie L. Poepping, Hristo N Nikolov, Kayla Soon, Stephen Sims, Jeffrey Dixon, David Holdsworth

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

Purpose: To demonstrate the effectiveness of a novel microfluidic device mimicking oscillatory blood flow, allowing cell biologists to examine how endothelial cells respond to a range of oscillatory shear stress levels.

Methods: The microfluidic chip consists of a circular-shaped reservoir, leading to a rectangular channel that is examined under a microscope. The plunger is connected to a speaker system and oscilloscope, allowing the plunger to apply a range of frequencies (5-60Hz) and voltages (5-10 V, leading to a variety in oscillation amplitudes) to the reservoir region. 1.1 um fluorescent particles diluted in distilled water were used for tracking. Processing was …

Magnetic Resonance Systems Development For Point-Of-Care Mri Platforms, Eric J. Lessard

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Magnetic resonance imaging utilizes electromagnets to produce anatomical images in both clinical and research settings. In the race towards increasing performance head-optimized scanners have begun playing a significant role in providing high quality imaging of the head. However, they are implemented using smaller geometries and as such fail to allow entrance of the patient past their shoulders. This is overcome by designing asymmetric gradient coils which have their imaging region located towards one end of the gradient coil, as opposed to the geometric center, allowing brain imaging. There exists interest in compact configurations which allow imaging further into the cervical …