International audienceWe fully characterize the natural evaporation of human drops of blood from substrates and substrate-dependent behavior. The heat flux adsorbed by the drops for evaporation is measured by means of a heat flux meter. A side-view measurement enables access to the drop contact angle, wetting diameter, and initial height. A top-view camera allows for the monitoring of the drying regime (deposition, gelation, and fracturation). This directly measured heat flux is related to the evaporative mass flux obtained from the mass of the drop, and the two show good agreement. Both types of measurements indicate that regardless of the substrate type, there is first a linearly decreasing regime of evaporation when the drop is mostly liquid and a second regime characterized by a sharp decrease. We show that the evaporation dynamics are influenced by the substrate's wettability but not by the substrate's thermal diffusivity. The different regimes of evaporation exhibited by glass and metallic substrates are explained in terms of evaporation fluxes at the drop surface. In the case of wetting drops (below 40 deg), the evaporation flux is very important along the drop periphery and decreases across the interface, whereas in the case of nonwetting drops (about 90 deg), the evaporation flux is almost uniform across the droplet's surface. We show that these different evaporation fluxes strongly influence the drying behavior. In the case of metallic substrates, this enables the formation of a uniform ``glassy skin'' around the droplet surface and, in the case of glass substrates, the formation a skin along the drop periphery with an inward gelation front. This behavior is analyzed in terms of the competition between the drying time and the gel formation time. Unstable drop surfaces were observed at high initial contact angles and are very similar to those of polymer drops. [DOI: 10.1115/1.4006033

Often blood pools are found on crime scenes which may provide information concerning the events that took place on the scene. However, there is a lack of knowledge concerning the drying dynamics of blood pools. This study focuses on the drying process of blood pools to determine what relevant information can be obtained for the forensic application. We recorded the drying process of blood pools with a camera while measuring the mass. We found that the drying process can be separated into five different stages: coagulation, gelation, rim desiccation, centre desiccation, and final desiccation. Moreover, by normalizing the mass and drying time we show that the mass of the blood pools diminish similarly and in a reproducible way for blood pools created under various conditions. In addition, we verify that the size of the blood pools is directly related to its volume and the wettability of the surface. Our study clearly shows that blood pools dry in a reproducible fashion. This preliminary work highlights the difficult task that represents blood pool analysis in forensic investigations, and how internal and external parameters influence its dynamics. We conclude that understanding the drying process dynamics would be advancement in time line reconstitution of events.

Courtrooms are asking for reliable scientific evidence in order to prevent wrongful convictions. Thus, a more rigorous approach to forensic science approved by scientific methods is promoted. The study of human blood dynamics in the context of forensic science is becoming a widespread research topic, although the physics behind wetting and drying of blood is not completely understood. Based on the morphological changes of drying blood pools, the following work presents a patentable method to quantitatively date these blood pools for forensic purposes. As for drying drops of blood, cracking patterns are observed but they are more disordered. Similar disordered crack patterns are observed in the case of gels, their evaporation process is, therefore, presented since this topic has been thoroughly investigated. We aim to find reliable patterns that could give information concerning the evolution of a blood pool over time to lead to practical application of this knowledge. An empirical model is established between final dried blood patterns and the generating mechanism, yielding application in bloodstain pattern analysis for forensic investigations.

Abstract. The drying of complex fluids provides a powerful insight into phenomena that take place on time and length scales not normally accessible. An important feature of complex fluids, colloidal dispersions and polymer solutions is their high sensitivity to weak external actions. Thus, the drying of complex fluids involves a large number of physical and chemical processes. The scope of this review is the capacity to tune such systems to reproduce and explore specific properties in a physics laboratory. A wide variety of systems are presented, ranging from functional coatings, food science, cosmetology, medical diagnostics and forensics to geophysics and art.

The maximum spreading diameter of complex fluid droplets has been extensively studied and explained by numerous physical models. This research focuses therefore on a different aspect, the bulging outer rim observed after evaporation on the final dried pattern of blood droplets. A correlation is found between the inner diameter, the maximum outer diameter, and the impact speed. This shows how the drying mechanism of a blood drip stain is influenced by the impact energy, which induces a larger spreading diameter and thus a different redistribution of red blood cells inside the droplet. An empirical relation is established between the final dried pattern of a passive bloodstain and its impact speed, yielding a possible forensic application. Indeed, being able to relate accurately the energy of the drop with its final pattern would give a clue to investigators, as currently no such simple and accurate tool exists.