Thixo-elastoviscoplastic modeling of human blood

Abstract

We propose an enhanced model for the rheological characterization of human blood that accounts for thixotropy, viscoelasticity, and yield-stress. Blood plasma is assumed to act as a Newtonian solvent. We introduce a scalar variable, λ, to macroscopically describe the structure of blood. The temporal evolution of λ is governed by an equation that accounts for aggregation of red blood cells and breakdown of rouleaux structures. We introduce a Gaussian function that qualitatively describes experimental findings on rouleaux restructuring and the expression that was proposed by Stephanou and Georgiou for the breakdown term. The constitutive equation for stresses is based on the elastoviscoplastic formalism by Saramito. However, the max term of the viscoplastic deformation rate has been replaced by a continuous function of λ to account for smooth solid-fluid transition, following the experimental evidence. The continuous yielding description provides improved rheological predictions, especially in small amplitude oscillatory shear. The model predicts finite viscous dissipation at small amplitude oscillation, as we would expect from a gel material-like human blood. Overall, it has nine adjustable parameters that are fitted simultaneously to experimental data by nonlinear regression. The model can accurately predict numerous flow conditions: steady shear, step shear, hysteresis loops, and oscillatory shear. We compare this model (TEVP 9) to our previous formulation for human blood (TEVP 11), and we show that the predictions of the new model are more accurate, despite using fewer parameters. We provide additional predictions for uniaxial elongation, which include finite normal stress difference, extensional hardening at large values of the extensional rate, and extensional thinning at extremely large extensional rates.