Design of a simple device for accurate measurement of human blood viscosity in oxygenated and deoxygenated conditions

The purpose of this research is to design, fabricate, and test a simple device that can accurately measure the viscosity of whole blood in both an oxygenated and a deoxygenated environment. The ideal device is easy to operate, inexpensive to fabricate, and is usable outside of a laboratory setting. The microfluidic rheometer presented here was fabricated using a wet chemical etching method. Using the channel dimensions, the known viscosity of a reference fluid, and the velocity of fluid flow of the sample and a reference fluid through the microchannels the unknown viscosity of a sample fluid is calculated