Abstract
Peristaltic motion arises in many physiological, medical, pharmaceutical and industrial processes. Control of the fluid volume rate and pressure is crucial for pumping applications, such as the infusion of intravenous liquid drugs, blood transportation, etc. In this study, a simulation of peristaltic flow is presented in which occlusion is imposed by pairs of circular rollers that squeeze a deformable channel connected to a reservoir with constant fluid pressure. Naturally, this kind of flow is laminar; hence, the computation occurred in this context. The effect of the number and speed of the pairs of rollers, as well as that of the intrapair roller gap, is investigated. Non-Newtonian fluids are considered, and the effect of the shear-thinning behavior degree is examined. The volumetric flow rate is found to increase with an increase in the number of rollers or in the relative occlusion. A reduction in the Bird–Carreau power index resulted in a small reduction in transport efficiency. The characteristic of the pumping was computed, i.e., the induced pressure as a function of the fluid volume rate. A strong positive correlation exists between relative occlusion and induced pressure. Shear-thinning behavior significantly decreases the developed pressure compared to Newtonian fluids. The immersed boundary method on curvilinear coordinates is adapted and validated for non-Newtonian fluids.
Highlights
Peristaltic flow appears in many physiological processes, such as urine flow in the ureter, lymph flow in the lymphatic system, bolus and chyme flow through the gastrointestinal tract and spermatic flow in the vas deferens
We studied the peristaltic flow with circular rollers for straight roller pumps
Using various values for relative occlusion RO, roller speed c, Bird–Carreau shear-thinning behavior expressed by n, number of rollers and length of the deformable tube L, simulations with the curvilinear immersed boundary method were performed
Summary
Peristaltic flow appears in many physiological processes, such as urine flow in the ureter, lymph flow in the lymphatic system, bolus and chyme flow through the gastrointestinal tract and spermatic flow in the vas deferens. The effect of the presence of an axial body on such flows has been theoretically investigated for Newtonian fluids, and the role of flow parameters in pumping characteristics was characterized by Roy et al [6]. A non-Newtonian analysis for power-law fluids was reported by Srivastava and Srivastava [7], which showed a pressure rise reduction for a power index less than unity. An analogous experimental examination of peristaltic pumping for a circular deformable tube was introduced by Latham [3] and Weinberg et al [8]. Flow through a straight deformable tube squeezed by three pairs of rollers was studied for non-Newtonian fluids using computer tomography and Doppler velocimetry by Nahar [9]
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