Numerical simulation of blood and plasma flow through the Petschek flow chambers

The Stagnation Point Flow Experiment is a popular means for studying blood-surface interactions in a surface strain rate gradient. The strain rate distribution on the test surface of the flow chamber used in this experiment was originally assumed to be simply proportional to the radial distance from the stagnation point. A numerical simulation of the flows through the five most frequently used chambers shows that this is true only for one of the chambers, approximately so for another, and not true for the other three. An additional numerical simulation indicates the blood should purge the saline priming liquid within a few seconds at the beginning of the experiment.