PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Shiyu Liu
AU  - Guangyu Bao
AU  - Zhenwei Ma
AU  - Christian J. Kastrup
AU  - Jianyu Li
TI  - Fracture Mechanics of Human Blood Clots: Measurements of Toughness and Critical Length scales
AID  - 10.1101/2021.03.13.435277
DP  - 2021 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2021.03.13.435277
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/03/14/2021.03.13.435277.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/03/14/2021.03.13.435277.full
AB  - 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.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.