Particle image velocimetry for microscale blood flow measurement

Particle image velocimetry for microscale blood flow measurement

Vennemann, P.

Westerweel, J. (promotor)

Mechanical Maritime and Materials Engineering

2008-04-21

The development, the regulation, and the pathology of the circulatory system (e.g. cardiogenesis, thermoregulation, atherosclerosis) are determined by blood flow induced mechanical forces. While this proposition has been confirmed during recent years, the exact mechanisms still remain unclear. This is mainly due to the fact that those forces could hardly be measured. The goal of the research described in this thesis is the development of a measurement technique that can provide such data for living organisms. Fluid mechanical forces can be deduced from spatial velocity information, as provided by particle image velocimetry. Small, artificial, fluorescent particles with a hydrophilic coating are used to determine the fluid velocity. Fluorescence enables the interference-free recording of the particle motion, and the coating makes the particles "invisible" to the biological system. Three dimensional flow is accessed by a combined measurement of multiple planes and a numerical reconstruction method. For the first time the three dimensional flow distribution in a beating embryonic chicken heart with an inner diameter of 200 micrometers could accurately be determined. The measurements explain high gene expression levels found at the inner curvature of bends.

particle image velocimetry
piv
blood flow
blood velocimetry
wall shear stress
atherosclerosis
cardiogenesis
gene expression
microvessel

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:28a0bbb8-e671-4806-ba52-cca2e6db0d50

978-90-9022974-4

Institutional Repository

doctoral thesis

(c) 2008 P. Vennemann