Acoustic measurement of compressibility and thermal expansion coefficient of erythrocytes.

Mechanical properties of human erythrocytes, namely adiabatic compressibility and thermal expansion coefficient, have been determined using a classical ultrasound velocity and attenuation burst transmission technique. The theoretical model concerns the corpuscular part of the elastic wave propagating in a suspension of viscous particles of small size compared with the wavelength. The thermal wave contribution was taken into account. Normal and stiffened red blood cells were suspended in saline of different NaCl concentration.