Cell-Free Layer (CFL) Analysis in a Polydimethysiloxane (PDMS) Microchannel: a Global Approach

The cell-free layer (CFL) is a hemodynamic phenomenon that has an important contribution to the rheological properties of blood flowing in microvessels. The present work aims to find the closest function describing RBCs flowing around the cell depleted layer in a polydimethysiloxane (PDMS) microchannel with a diverging and a converging bifurcation. The flow behavior of the CFL was investigated by using a high-speed video microscopy system where special attention was devoted to its behavior before the bifurcation and after the confluence of the microcahnnel. The numerical data was first obtained by using a manual tracking plugin and then analysed by an optimization technique using the genetic algorithm approach. The results show that for the majority of the cases the function that more closely resembles the CFL boundary is the trigonometric function.