Narrow Results

Metal (iron and nickel) films have been deposited on soft elastic polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) substrates by direct current sputtering technique and the impurity induced wrinkling patterns are investigated by using optical microscopy and atomic force microscopy. It is found that the metal films can spontaneously form disordered wrinkles due to the isotropic compressive stress. In the vicinity of film impurities such as extraneous particles, linear defects, cracks and thickness-gradient film edges, the stress field becomes anisotropic owing to symmetry breaking and thus complex wrinkling patterns including straight stripes, herringbones, crossings, labyrinths and their transitions can be observed. The morphological evolutions, structural characteristics and physical mechanisms of the impurity induced wrinkles have been discussed and analyzed based on the continuum elastic theory.

When blood flows in vessel curved portion, the presence of curvature generates a centrifugal force that acts in the same manner as a compressive load. Therefore, blood flow velocity has an important effect on the stability of vessels. In this study, the blood vessel is simulated as a flexible beam conveying fluid base on Euler–Bernoulli beam theory, and various boundary conditions are represented for the modeled vessels. Then, analytical and numerical methods are deployed to extract desired parameters. The effects of blood flow, hematocrit and stiffness of surrounding tissues on the buckling critical pressure are investigated. The results show that the mentioned parameters have considerable effects on blood vessels stability. Several numerical findings illustrate a reduction in critical buckling pressure with increasing hematocrit and blood flow velocity. In addition, the size of red blood cell has a significant effect on critical buckling pressure in low hematocrits. As increasing red blood cell diameter decreases critical buckling pressure. Furthermore, because of blood viscosity, the non-uniformity effects of the blood flow on blood vessels stability are investigated by considering a modification factor. These results improve our understanding of blood vessels instability.