Threshold shear stress for the transition between tumbling and tank-treading of red blood cells in shear flow: dependence on the viscosity of the suspending medium

Red blood cells are the subject of diverse studies. One branch is the observation and theoretical modelling of their behaviour in a shear flow. This work deals with the flow of single red cells suspended in solutions much more viscous than blood plasma. Below a critical shear rate (${\dot {\gamma } }_{t} $) the red cells rotate with little change of their resting shape. Above that value they become elongated and aligned in the shear field. We measured${\dot {\gamma } }_{t} $at viscosities (${\eta }_{0} $) ranging from 10.7 to 104 mPa s via observation along the vorticity of a Poiseuille flow in a glass capillary;${\eta }_{0} {\dot {\gamma } }_{t} $decreased steeply with increasing${\eta }_{0} $up to a value of 25 mPa s and remained constant for higher values. Present theoretical models are not in keeping with the measured data. Modifications of basic model assumptions are suggested.