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Updated: Jun 11, 2026

Perfusable Vascular Network with a Tissue Model in a Microfluidic Device
Published on: April 4, 2018
Multiple equilibrium states in a micro-vascular network
David Gardner1, Yiyang Li, Benjamin Small
1Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, Needham, MA, USA.
Abstract:
We use a simple model of micro-vascular blood flow to explore conditions that give rise to multiple equilibrium states in a three-node micro-vascular network. The model accounts for two primary rheological effects: the Fåhraeus-Lindqvist effect, which describes the apparent viscosity of blood in a vessel, and the plasma skimming effect, which governs the separation of red blood cells at diverging nodes. We show that multiple equilibrium states are possible, and we use our analytical and computational tools to design an experiment for validation.
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