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Updated: Jun 12, 2026

Controlled Microfluidic Environment for Dynamic Investigation of Red Blood Cell Aggregation
Published on: June 4, 2015
Chaotic dynamics of red blood cells in a sinusoidal flow
Jules Dupire1, Manouk Abkarian, Annie Viallat
1laboratoire Adhésion & Inflammation, Inserm U600, case 937, 163 Avenue de Luminy 13288 Marseille Cedex 9, France.
Abstract:
We show that the motion of individual red blood cells in an oscillating moderate shear flow is described by a nonlinear system of three coupled oscillators. Our experiments reveal that the cell tank treads and tumbles either in a stable way with synchronized cell inclination, membrane rotation and hydrodynamic oscillations, or in an irregular way, very sensitively to initial conditions. By adapting our model described previously, we determine the theoretical diagram for the red cell motion in a sinusoidal flow close to physiological shear stresses and flow variation frequencies and reveal large domains of chaotic motions. Finally, fitting our observations allows a characterization of cell viscosity and membrane elasticity.
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