The effects of flow rate and blood rheology on the proximal and distal recirculation lengths.

<p>a) Increases in bulk flow rate were found to cause reductions in the proximal recirculation length and increases in the distal recirculation length produced by each rheological model. b) The relationship between recirculation length and normalised mean viscosity, which measures the ratio of the average apparent viscosity in a recirculation zone and the Newtonian model’s dynamic viscosity (</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><mi>μ</mi><mo>′</mo></p><mi>N</mi><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p> = 0.00345Pa·s), was found to closely approximate linearity at each inlet flow rate. Furthermore, increases in normalised mean viscosity were found to cause reductions in recirculation length at each flow rate.<p>