Class: BE-310
Group: T3
Members: Natalie Georgakis, Elizabeth Khaykin, Derek Wong, Armaghan Farooq
Date: Spring 1998
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Abstract:
The goal of this experiment was to determine the wall effects on the sedimentation of spheres dropped through a cylinder of viscous medium. This experiment served as a model to understand the wall effects that affect the velocity of blood cells traveling through different sized vessels. This was modeled by dropping Delran spheres of five different radii, ro, through glycerin in three graduated cylinders of varying radii, R, and measuring their terminal velocities. The Ladenburg equation was found to give a relationship between ro/R and the measured terminal velocities. The data best fit this theory in a ro/R range of 0.0466 + 0.001 to 0.186 + 0.011. Bounded terminal velocities were then estimated for a blood cell in plasma with ro/R ratios in that range. Showing that the theory worked best in that range, the bounded terminal velocity for a red blood cell in plasma with a ro/R = 0.0008 was found to be 6.26 x 10^-6 m/s. For ro/R = 0.0294 the bounded terminal velocity was found to be 4.45 x 10^-6 m/s.