The flow of blood inside the vessels is a non trivial fluid dynamics problem since particles with different size, shape and inertia are involved. In a simplest way, the fluid phase of the blood, mainly composed of the hemoglobin solution inside the red blood cell (RBC) membranes and the plasma inside, can be, in a good approximation, considered as a Newtonian fluid, satisfying the Navier-Stokes equation of motion. The platelets can also, in a first approximation, be considered as tracers following faithfully the fluid velocity field.
What is the nature of the flow in such a complex situation for a typical blood vessel? Is it laminar or turbulent? Thank you.
I recommend this article to you. It is somewhat dated, but very interesting:
http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.fluid.29.1.399?journalCode=fluid
Quoting from this article: "The typical Reynolds number range of blood flow in the body varies from 1 in small arterioles to approximately 4000 in the largest artery, the aorta. Thus the flow spans a range in which viscous forces are dominant on one end and inertial forces are more important on the other."
Thus, depending on the type of vessel you are considering, you will encounter creeping to turbulent flows.
I recommend this article to you. It is somewhat dated, but very interesting:
http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.fluid.29.1.399?journalCode=fluid
Quoting from this article: "The typical Reynolds number range of blood flow in the body varies from 1 in small arterioles to approximately 4000 in the largest artery, the aorta. Thus the flow spans a range in which viscous forces are dominant on one end and inertial forces are more important on the other."
Thus, depending on the type of vessel you are considering, you will encounter creeping to turbulent flows.
Hi! Blood flow is laminar almost everywhare in the body. The only exception is the beginning of aorta. Please see the book of Caro et al. "Mechanics of circulation".
Dear Abdallah.
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I think it was better reconsider your model before questioning whether the flow is laminar or turbulent.
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You make the assumption of a Newtonian fluid, and in actuality it is not. As is already written in the previous answers Apparent Reynolds numbers are smaller than 4000, then the influence of viscosity is dominant with respect to inertial forces, thus any model case from a Newtonian fluid will only have some success in regions higher Reynolds.
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