Experimental Diagnosis of Various Biofluid Flow Phenomena

摘要

Biological flows are vital for the conservation of life and indispensable commodity of living organisms. Morphological structures of living organisms and biological flow phenomena in nature have been evolved through long history. The basic physics of several biofluid flow phenomena and the hidden secrets of nature such as blood flow in chicken embryos, blood sucking of mosquitoes, and sap flows in plants have been investigated experimentally using advanced flow visualization techniques (X-ray PIV, holographic PTV, time-resolved micro-PIV etc). The biological samples include insects (blood-sucking of mosquitoes, digestive system of butterflies), fishes (zebra fish, planktons), animals (blood flows in chicken embryos or rats) and plants (sap flow in xylem vessels of rice or Arabidopsis). Moreover, gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) were employed as tracer particles to measure instantaneous velocity fields of bio-fluid flows. The developed AuNPs particles transmit the membranes of organisms without destroying the surrounding tissues. Detailed understanding on these biofluid flow phenomena will be used to develop creative biomimic technologies for practical applications in bio-medical science, microfluidics and renewable energy etc.