AGGREGATION OF ERYTHROCYTES INTO COLUMNAR STRUCTURES 
("ROULEAUX") AND THE RHEOLOGY OF BLOOD

L. A. Faitelson and E. E. Jakobsons

UDC 532.695:678-19

The liquid-crystalline order of the structure of blood, 
which is determined by the aggregation of erythrocytes into "rouleaux," 
i.e., liquid-crystalline domains, is considered. The form of the viscosity-rate 
of shear flow curve, specific for liquid-crystalline polymers, and 
the scaling regularities of the concentration dependence of the initial 
viscosity of erythrocyte suspensions are noted. An example of description 
and a prediction of the rheological functions of blood by the phenomenological 
model of an anisotropic viscoelastic liquid are given.

Institute of Polymer Mechanics, Latvian University, Riga, 
Latvia; email: laf@edi.lv. Translated from Inzhenerno-Fizicheskii 
Zhurnal, Vol. 76, No. 3, pp. 214-225, May-June, 2003. Original 
article submitted January 27, 2003.