Magnetic Field Effects on Blood Analogues Seeded with Magnetic Particles

In the last few years, attention towards the employment of magnetic fields in blood flows has increased significantly. Magnetic fields hold significant potential in substituting invasive medical procedures. Among many applications, magnetic fields can guide micro/nanoparticles in blood flow for localised drug delivery and cancer treatment. However, we still need to thoroughly understand the effects of external magnetic fields on particle-seeded-blood rheology under shear flow. In this preliminary work, we set out to study the rheology of a Newtonian blood analogue loaded with spherical magnetic particles at different concentrations (5, 10 and 15 wt%) under the effects of an external magnetic field of varying intensity. The Newtonian analogue was an aqueous solution of 52 wt% dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO). Steady shear experiments were carried out using an Anton Paar MCR-302e rotational rheometer equipped with a magnetorheological device, which allowed for magnetic field generation of intensity up to 720 mT, and with different geometries (PP20 MRD and CP20 MRD) at different gaps. The results showed low viscosity values as the gap was decreased with the PP20 MRD. These viscosity values were corrected using a Generalised Linear Model. Additional numerical simulations were developed to elucidate the origin of the gap error, mostly caused by a non-parallelism of the geometry.