Investigation of Flow in an Idealized Curved Artery: Comparative Study Using CFD and Fsi With Newtonian and Non-Newtonian Fluids

Abstract

Artery curvatures, where disturbed flow patterns are expected, are preferred sites of formation of atherosclerosis. Experimental studies have shown that low and oscillating wall shear stress (WSS) plays an important role in the development and progression of atherosclerosis. Accurate estimation of these biomechanical parameters is important to assess the risk of atherosclerosis formation. The coupled effects of non-Newtonian behavior of blood and artery wall flexibility for the transient blood flow through an idealized curved coronary artery are investigated using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) as well as fluid–structure interaction (FSI) simulations. The choice of fluid model, Carreau and Newtonian, was found to impact the time averaged and minimum WSS values. The effects of wall deformation on time averaged wall shear tress were negligible. However, a comparison of temporal minima of WSS along the curvature showed significant variations between CFD and FSI simulations. Since low WSS values are crucial in the prediction of atherosclerosis development, it is concluded that both the non-Newtonian behavior of blood and the wall flexibility should be considered for computational studies.

Influence of Fluid Rheology on Blood Flow Haemodynamics in Patient-Specific Arterial Networks of Varied Complexity – In-Silico Studies

“…Additionally, high values of IG and IL parameters suggested that the blood model affected the flow haemodynamics. This statement and most of the presented results are in agreement with the findings of Shinde et al [11], Razavi et al [14], Gharahi et al [35] and Moradicheghamahi et al [36]. The Newtonian fluid model underestimated AAWSS, TAWSS and AAWSSG parameters, which is consistent with the research of Caballero and Lain [2].…”

“…Thus, this indicates that the rheology of blood plays a critical role in the ability of the numerical solver to properly approximate the flow distribution. Shinde et al [11] stated that if shear stress is meant to be considered as a predictor of atherosclerosis development, a non-Newtonian fluid should be assumed. In contrast, Boyd and Buick [12], who also analysed the carotid artery as well, concluded that the non-Newtonian properties of blood can be neglected due to small relative differences between rheological models.…”

A fluid-structure interaction model accounting arterial vessels as a key part of the blood-flow engine for the analysis of cardiovascular diseases

“…FSI theory has been widely used in the study of human blood circulation, especially in the field of hemorheology. There has been great interest in recent research on the effects of vascular elasticity on the distribution of blood flow velocity, wall shear stress and flow velocity (Coccarelli et al, 2021;Chalons et al, 2022), including the effects of different geometric structures (Corti et al, 2020), external conditions (Nardinocchi et al, 2005;Misra et al, 2018), multi-scale factors (Qohar et al, 2021), fluid properties (Shinde et al, 2022) and states (Younis and Berger 2004). There have been many studies on fluidstructure interaction models of blood and arteries, such as the Ventricular-Arterial Coupling model (Pagoulatou et al, 2021), Direct Eulerian Generalized Riemann Problem scheme (Sheng et al, 2021), and Hybrid Windkessel-Womersley coupled model (Aboelkassem and Virag 2019), among others.…”