CHAPTER 4

Mechanism of Blood
Circulation
Learning outcome
At the end of this session the students should be able to:
• Describe blood rheology
• Distinguish elastic, plastic and continuous deformation
• Recall the different Stress types
• List the functions of blood
• Describe each blood components
• Explain the functions of cell types
• Relate haematocrit and blood viscosity
• Distinguish erythrocyte indices
• Solve problems on Erythrocyte indices
Blood Rheology
• Rheology is the scientific field that deals with the flow
and deformation behaviour of materials, with the
materials under consideration being solids or fluids,
including liquids and gases
• Deformation can be defined as the relative displacement
of material points within the body
• Solids react to the application of a force by a given
deformation.
1
What is the difference
between elastic, plastic
and continuous
deformation??
?
Cont.
• If a solid is elastic, the deformation is proportional to
the applied force, and, if the deformation is not too
large, the original shape is recovered when the force is
removed.
• If a permanent deformation remains after the removal
of force, the solid is said to be plastic.
• Fluids continuously deform or flow because of the
application of applied forces.
Cont.
• Some materials exhibit viscoelastic behaviour, which is
a combination of fluid-like and solid-like behaviour.
• In studying the degree of deformation (or flow) of a
material, the force applied per unit area must be
considered.
• This deforming force, termed stress, may have several
components, including
2
What are the stress
types

?
Cont.
1. Shear stress, the force per unit area acting parallel to
the surface, and
2. Normal stress, the force per unit area acting
perpendicular to the surface.
• The latter is defined as pressure in a fluid.
• The degree of deformation is termed strain, which also
has various components associated with the different
stress components.
• For example, shear stress results in shear strain, often
termed shear rate, in which the layers of material move
parallel to each other in a progressive manner
Cont.
• Blood rheology also known as Hemorheology is the
scientific field working on the biophysical properties and
flow properties of blood
• Hematologic system encompasses the production and
the transport of blood throughout the body
3
What are the functions
of blood

?
Function of Blood
1. Respiratory
• Transport o2 from lungs to tissues
• Transport CO2 from tissues to lungs
2. Nutrition
• Transport “food” during digestion process to tissues
3. Excretory
• Transport waste from tissues to kidney(urea, uric acid)
4. Protective
• White blood cells, antibodies

5. Regulatory
• Regulate body temperature
4
What are the
compositions of blood

?
Composition of Blood
• 55% plasma
- Plasma is the strew-colored
Liquid in which the bloods
are suspended

• 45% formed elements

- Red blood cells(Erythrocytes)
- White blood cells(leukocytes)
- Platelets(thrombocytes)
Cont.
• Blood is a connective tissue, which means it consists of
cells and a matrix surrounding those cells.
• The composition of blood can be analyzed by using
centrifugation.
• Placing blood into test tube and spinning it at a very
high velocities separates it into two distinct layers.
• The layers closer to the bottom contains the cells while
the top layer contains the blood plasma.
Blood plasma
• This is the matrix of the blood and makes up 55% of
blood’s volume.
• It is the fluid portion of our blood that consists of

1. Water, which makes up as much as 95% of blood

plasma
2. Proteins such as albumin, fibrinogen, immunoglobulins,
etc.
3. Nutrients such as glucose, fatty acids, amino acids
Cont.
4. Electrolytes such as sodium, calcium, magnesium,
bicarbonate, etc.
5 Waste products such as lactic acid, carbon dioxide, urea,
etc.
6. Hormones such as ADH and Aldosterone
• The blood plasma functions as the fluid like matrix that
transports essential nutrients, minerals and waste
products in the body.
5
What are the functions
of each cell types

?
Cell Types
• Cells make up the remaining 45% of the blood by
volume.
• There are three types of cells

• Erythrocytes(red blood cells)

• Leukocytes(White blood cells)
• Thrombocytes(Platelets)

• All three cell types arise from the same precursor cell
in the bone
Cont.
1. Erythrocytes
• Oxygen is a non-polar molecule, which means it can’t
easily dissolve in the aqueous blood plasma.
• Erythrocytes are specialized cells that pick up oxygen in
in the lungs and carry it to the proper destination
• Red blood cells have two special properties that make
perfect for carrying oxygen
Cont.
1. They have a biconcave shape.
• These maximizes their surface area and makes them
very efficient in exchange of oxygen
• This shape also give them the ability to squeeze
through tiny capillary
2. They have no nucleus and no organelles.
• this is to maximize the space inside so that they can
store more hemoglobin
• Hemoglobin is a special protein that can hold four
oxygen molecules
Cont.
Cont.
2. Leukocytes
• only about 1% of the cells in the blood are white blood
cells.
• However, this number can increase during infection
• These are our immune cells that help us fight off
bacterial and agents.
• Leukocytes are larger than erythrocytes and unlike red
blood cells they have normal nucleus.
Cont.
• White blood cells come in five major types, and these
are divided in to two different group
1. Granulocytes: includes neutrophils, eosinophils and
basophils, all of which have granules in their
cytoplasm, when stained and viewed on a microscope.
2. Agranulocytes: includes monocytes and lymphocytes,
which don’t have granules in the cytoplasm.
Cont.
Thrombocytes
• Also know as platelets, these are cells that also have no
nucleus like red blood cells and function in the blood
clotting process.
• They are produced when large cells called
megakaryocytes break into pieces
• They move through blood vessels and stick to torn
regions of endothelium.
• Once they bind, they release chemicals and initiate the
blood clotting cascade
Cont.
Hematocrit
• Hematocrit is defined The percentage by volume of
packed red blood cells in a given sample of blood
• The hematocrit may also be referred to as Packed Cell
Volume (PCV) or erythrocyte volume fraction (EVF).
• The percentage by volume of packed red blood cells in a
given sample of blood after centrifugation
Male – 40 - 54%
Female - 36-48%
Cont.
• Blood is made up of red and white blood cells, platelets,
and plasma.
• A decrease in the number or size of red cells also
decreases the amount of space they occupy, resulting in
a lower hematocrit.
• An increase in the number or size of red cells increases
the amount of space they occupy, resulting in a higher
hematocrit
Blood viscosity

Einstein
•   equation
u=up()
Where - u is the blood viscosity
- up is plasma viscosity
- Φ is hematocrit
• This equation provides a tool for estimating blood
viscosity at various temperatures and hematocrits
based on the viscosity of the plasma in which the red
blood cells are suspended
Cont.
••  α is defined in the equation below
α=0.076 exp[2.49Φ+exp(-1.69Φ)]
• where Φ is haematocrit and T is the absolute
temperature of the blood in degrees Kelvin.
Cont.
Measuring
•   blood viscosity using Poiseuille's law
• Recall from chapter 3 that Poiseuille’s law relates the
flow through a tube to the pressure drop that drives the
flow. In fact, that flow is also dependent on viscosity.
Poiseuille’s law is represented in
Q=
• By solving equation for viscosity,
η=
Cont.
Erythrocyte indices
• There can be a number of reasons to cause a person to
have a lower than normal quantity of haemoglobin
- It could be that the person has a normal
number of erythrocytes but lower than normal
haemoglobin in each erythrocyte
- It could be that the person has a normal amount of
haemoglobin in each erythrocyte, but a very low
haematocrit
Cont.
• These parameters are quantified and those values are
known as erythrocyte indices.
• The indices include these measurements:

• Mean corpuscular volume (MCV)

• Mean corpuscular hemoglobin (MCH) and

• Mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration (MCHC).

Cont.
  corpuscular volume (MCV)
•Mean
• The MCV can be calculated from the haematocrit of
whole blood and the concentration of red blood cells per
unit volume as

MCV=
• It is the measure of average value of RBCs
• Normal value 80 – 96 fL (fL=um3)
Sample Problem 1

A patient has a haematocrit of 45 percent

red blood cells and has 5 million red blood
cells in each cubic millimetre of blood.
Estimate the MCV
Cont.
•  
Mean corpuscular hemoglobin (MCH)
• A second index measures the average weight of
haemoglobin in a red blood cell.
• That index is known as the mean corpuscular
haemoglobin (MCH) index. MCH may be calculated as
• Normal range: 25.4-34.6 pg

MCH=
Sample Problem 2

If a patient has a haemoglobin

concentration of 15 g/100 mL of whole
blood and also has 5 million red blood cells
in each cubic millimetre blood, then
calculate in the MCH:
Cont.
  corpuscular hemoglobin concentration(MCHC).
•Mean
• This index indicates the amount of haemoglobin per unit
volume
• In contrast to MCH, MCHC correlates the haemoglobin
content within the volume of the cell
• Normal Range 31-36 g/dl

MCHC=
Sample Problem 3

For a patient with a haemoglobin

concentration of 15 g/100 mL of whole
blood and a haematocrit of 0.45, then
calculate in the MCHC: