Acoustic measurement of compressibility and thermal expansion coefficient of erythrocytes

Mechanical properties of human erythrocytes, namely adiabatic compressibili ty and thermal expansion coefficient, have been determined using a classica l ultrasound velocity and attenuation burst transmission technique. The the oretical model concerns the corpuscular part of the elastic wave propagatin g in a suspension of viscous particles of small size compared with the wave length. The thermal wave contribution was taken into account. Normal and st iffened red blood cells were suspended in saline of different NaCl concentr ation.