title: Design and construction of a linear shear stress flow chamber.
abstract: A new parallel plate flow chamber that has a linear variation of shear stress, starting from a predetermined maximum value at the entrance and falling to zero at the exit, has been designed and tested. This is in contrast to the usual rectangular channel plan which produces a constant shear stress over the entire length. The new design is based on the theory of Hele-Shaw flow between parallel plates. To verify the efficacy of the flow channel, the effect of fluid shear stress on platelet adhesion to a fibrinogen-coated glass surface was tested. The percentage of attached platelets after 5 min of shear stress is shown to be a function of shear stress. With this new flow chamber, cell-cell interactions can be studied efficiently over a wide range of shear stress using a single run at constant discharge.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Usami
authors.forename: H H
authors.initials: HH
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Chien
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Skalak
mesh_terms: D004730:Endothelium, Vascular / Q000502:physiology*; D004867:Equipment Design / Q000592:standards*; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D005340:Fibrinogen / Q000502:physiology*; D005898:Glass; D006801:Humans; D008853:Microscopy; D010973:Platelet Adhesiveness / Q000502:physiology*; D012212:Rheology / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000592:standards; D014743:Videotape Recording
chemical_list: D005340:Fibrinogen