Pulses and Pressures Quiz

See Types of Blood Flow. Laminar flow (C) means that blood moves in orderly parallel layers rather than mixing chaotically. In the fully developed steady-flow model, blood at the vessel wall has the lowest velocity and blood in the centre moves fastest. Plotting velocity across the vessel gives a parabolic profile, a curved peak in the centre. This model is useful for understanding resistance and friction, but real arterial flow is pulsatile and large curved vessels need not show a perfect parabola. Keep spatial organisation separate from timing: layered flow can still speed up and slow down through the cardiac cycle.

Chaotic changes in direction (D) describe turbulence, which increases energy loss. A describes reversal over time; brief reversal can occur in normal peripheral arterial waveforms and does not define laminar flow or automatically indicate disease. E misses the velocity gradient between the wall and centre. B is too absolute because blood does not invariably become disorganised as soon as it leaves the heart, although high velocities and aortic geometry can disturb the ideal layered profile.