Fracture Mechanics of Human Blood Clots: Measurements of Toughness and Critical Length scales

Abstract

Blood coagulates to plug vascular damage and stop bleeding, and thus the function of blood clots in hemostasis depends on their resistance against rupture (toughness). Despite the significance, fracture mechanics of blood clots remains largely unexplored, particularly the measurements of toughness and critical length scales governing clot fracture. Here, we study the fracture behavior of human whole blood clots and platelet-poor plasma clots. The fracture energy of whole blood clots and platelet-poor plasma clots determined using modified lap-shear method is 5.90 +- 1.18 J/m2 and 0.96 +- 0.90 J/m2, respectively. We find that the measured toughness is independent of the specimen geometry and loading conditions. These results reveal a significant contribution of blood cells to the clot fracture, as well as the dissipative length scale and nonlinear elastic length scale governing clot fracture.

Traditional Thrombus Composition and Related Endovascular Outcomes: Catching up with the Recent Evidence

“…Tutwiler et al 21 (2020) investigated the mechanism and toughness of thrombus rupture with human blood plasma-derived fibrin thrombi, quantifying toughness through the critical energy release rate during cracked fibrin gel rupture. Liu et al 22 (2021) calculated the fracture energy for whole blood thrombi and platelet-poor thrombi. The fracture energy was lower for platelet-poor thrombi, indicating that the fracture toughness was lower in erythrocyte-rich thrombi.…”