Dense-Discrete Phase Simulations of Blood Flow in a Stenotic Coronary

Abstract

AbstractAtherosclerotic cardiovascular disease is a silent and common pathology that affects millions of people around the world. Over time, lipids are deposited in the arterial walls reducing blood flow and as a result can lead to several dangerous and life-threatening cardiovascular issues including myocardial infarction. Due to the high mortality caused by this disease, over the years, great progress has been achieved in understanding the blood fow phenomena through extensive experimental and numerical research. Although in vivo and in vitro experiments have played an important role in the validity of new treatment techniques, due to the great progress that has been made in computational power, numerical methods have been frequently applied in atherosclerosis’ research. Typically, blood flow modeling is performed considering the blood as a homogeneous Newtonian or non-Newtonian fluid. However, blood is a complex fluid that contains a mixture of plasma, red blood cells (RBCs), white blood cells, and platelets. Accordingly, in the present study, the dense-discrete phase model (DDPM), which consists of a hybrid Eulerian-Lagrangian method, is used to simulate the presence of RBCs in blood when flowing through a stenotic coronary arteries. Moreover, the same simulation was performed resorting to the mixture model in order to verify if the differences are considerable. In general, it was found that the generation of recirculation zones is intensified in the DDPM model when compared to the mixture model, but in terms of velocity no significant differences were found.KeywordsBlood flowHemodynamicsMultiphase modellingDDPM