×

Numerical simulation of pulsatile non-Newtonian flow in the carotid artery bifurcation. (English) Zbl 1270.76092

Summary: Both clinical and post mortem studies indicate that, in humans, the carotid sinus of the carotid artery bifurcation is one of the favored sites for the genesis and development of atherosclerotic lesions. Hemodynamic factors have been suggested to be important in atherogenesis. To understand the correlation between atherogenesis and fluid dynamics in the carotid sinus, the blood flow in artery was simulated numerically. In those studies, the property of blood was treated as an incompressible, Newtonian fluid. In fact, however, the blood is a complicated non-Newtonian fluid with shear thinning and viscoelastic properties, especially when the shear rate is low. A variety of non-Newtonian models have been applied in the numerical studies. Among them, the Casson equation was widely used. However, the Casson equation agrees well only when the shear rate is less than 10s\(^1\). The flow field of the carotid bifurcation usually covers a wide range of shear rate. We therefore believe that it may not be sufficient to describe the property of blood only using the Casson equation in the whole flow field of the carotid bifurcation. In the present study, three different blood constitutive models, namely, the Newtonian, the Casson and the hybrid fluid constitutive models were used in the flow simulation of the human carotid bifurcation. The results were compared among the three models. The results showed that the Newtonian model and the hybrid model had very similar distributions of the axial velocity, secondary flow and wall shear stress, but the Casson model resulted in significant differences in these distributions from the other two models. This study suggests that it is not appropriate to only use the Casson equation to simulate the whole flow field of the carotid bifurcation, and on the other hand, Newtonian fluid is a good approximation to blood for flow simulations in the carotid artery bifurcation.

MSC:

76Z05 Physiological flows
76A05 Non-Newtonian fluids
76M12 Finite volume methods applied to problems in fluid mechanics
92C35 Physiological flow
PDFBibTeX XMLCite
Full Text: DOI

References:

[1] Bharadvaj B.K., Mabon R.F., Giddens D.P.: Steady flow in a model of the human carotid bifurcation. Part I–flow visualization. J. Biomech. 15, 349–362 (1982) · doi:10.1016/0021-9290(82)90057-4
[2] Bharadvaj B.K., Mabon R.F., Giddens D.P.: Steady flow in a model of the human carotid bifurcation. Part II–Laser Doppler anemometer measurements. J. Biomech. 15, 363–378 (1982) · doi:10.1016/0021-9290(82)90058-6
[3] Jou L.D., Berger S.A.: Numerical simulation of the flow in the carotid bifurcation1. Theor. Comp. Fluid Dyn. 10, 239–248 (1998) · Zbl 0912.76043 · doi:10.1007/s001620050061
[4] Perktold K., Resch M., Peter R.O.: Three-dimensional numerical analysis of pulsatile flow and wall shear stress in the carotid artery bifurcation. J. Biomech. 24, 409–420 (1991) · doi:10.1016/0021-9290(91)90029-M
[5] Ku D.N., Giddens D.P.: Pulsatile flow in a model carotid bifurcation. Arteriosclerosis 3, 31–39 (1983) · doi:10.1161/01.ATV.3.1.31
[6] Rindt C.C.M., Steenhoven A.A.V.: Unsteady flow in a rigid 3-D model of the carotid artery bifurcation. J. Biomech. Eng. Trans. ASME 118, 90–96 (1996) · doi:10.1115/1.2795950
[7] Rene B., Rappitsch G.: Hemodynamics in the carotid artery bifurcation: a comparison between numerical simulations and in vitro MRI measurements. J. Biomech. 33, 137–144 (2000) · doi:10.1016/S0021-9290(99)00164-5
[8] Batra R.L., Jena B.: Flow of a Casson fluid in a slightly curved tube. Int. J. Eng. Sci. 29, 1245–1258 (1991) · Zbl 0753.76008 · doi:10.1016/0020-7225(91)90028-2
[9] Barbara M., Johnston P.R., Johnston S.C., David K.: Non- Newtonian blood flow in human right coronary arteries: transient simulations. J. Biomech. 39, 1116–1128 (2006) · doi:10.1016/j.jbiomech.2005.01.034
[10] Chen J., Lu X.Y.: Numerical investigation of the non- Newtonian pulsatile blood flow in a bifurcation model with a non-planar branch. J. Biomech. 39, 818–832 (2006) · doi:10.1016/j.jbiomech.2005.02.003
[11] Das B., Batra R.L.: Secondary flow of a Casson fluid in a slightly curved tube. Int. J. Non-Linear Mech. 28, 567–577 (1993) · Zbl 0790.76006 · doi:10.1016/0020-7462(93)90048-P
[12] Hernán A.G., Nelson O.M.: On predicting unsteady non-Newtonian blood flow. Appl. Math. Comput. 170, 909–923 (2005) · Zbl 1103.76072 · doi:10.1016/j.amc.2004.12.029
[13] Perktold K., Resch M., Florian H.: Pulsatile non-Newtonian flow characteristics in a three-dimensional human carotid bifurcation model. J. Biomech. Eng. 113, 464–475 (1991) · doi:10.1115/1.2895428
[14] Siauw W.L., Ng E.Y.K., Mazumdar J.: Unsteady stenosis flow prediction: a comparative study of non-Newtonian models with operator splitting scheme. Med. Eng. Phys. 22, 265–277 (2000) · doi:10.1016/S1350-4533(00)00036-9
[15] Ma P., Li X., Ku D.N.: Convective mass transfer at the carotid bifurcation. J. Biomech. 30, 565–571 (1997) · doi:10.1016/S0021-9290(97)84506-X
[16] Hyun S., Kleinstreuer C., Archie J.P. Jr: Hemodynamics analyses of arterial expansions with implications to thrombosis and restenosis. Med. Eng. Phys. 22, 13–27 (2000) · doi:10.1016/S1350-4533(00)00006-0
This reference list is based on information provided by the publisher or from digital mathematics libraries. Its items are heuristically matched to zbMATH identifiers and may contain data conversion errors. In some cases that data have been complemented/enhanced by data from zbMATH Open. This attempts to reflect the references listed in the original paper as accurately as possible without claiming completeness or a perfect matching.