Abstract
Blood flow must obey the principles of conservation of mass, momentum, and energy. Applied to any given region of space, the principle of conservation of mass means that whatever flows in must flow out. If flow is confined to blood vessels, then we obtain a rule similar to Kirchhoff’s law of electric circuits : At any junction the summation of current flowing into a junction must be equal to the sum of the currents flowing out of that junction. In a single tube of variable cross section, a steady flow implies that the local velocity is inversely proportional to the local cross-sectional area.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Fåhraeus, R. (1975). Empty Arteries, Lecture delivered at the 15th International Congress of the History of Medicine, Madrid.
Fung, Y. C. (1977). A First Course in Continuum Mechanics, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.
Harris, C. R. S. (1980). The arteries in Greco-Roman medicine. In Structure and Function of the Circulation(Schwartz, C. T., Werthessen, N. T., and Wolf, S., eds.)., Plenum Press, New York.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1984 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Fung, Y.C. (1984). Physical Principles of Circulation. In: Biodynamics. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-3884-1_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-3884-1_1
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4757-3886-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-4757-3884-1
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive