Fluid flow of incompressible viscous fluid through a non-linear elastic tube

Abstract

The study of viscous flow in tubes with deformable walls is of specific interest in industry and biomedical technology and in understanding various phenomena in medicine and biology (atherosclerosis, artery replacement by a graft, etc) as well. The present work describes numerically the behavior of a viscous incompressible fluid through a tube with a non-linear elastic membrane insertion. The membrane insertion in the solid tube is composed by non-linear elastic material, following Fung’s (Biomechanics: mechanical properties of living tissue, 2nd edn. Springer, New York, 1993) type strain–energy density function. The fluid is described through a Navier–Stokes code coupled with a system of non linear equations, governing the interaction with the membrane deformation. The objective of this work is the study of the deformation of a non-linear elastic membrane insertion interacting with the fluid flow. The case of the linear elastic material of the membrane is also considered. These two cases are compared and the results are evaluated. The advantages of considering membrane nonlinear elastic material are well established. Finally, the case of an axisymmetric elastic tube with variable stiffness along the tube and membrane sections is studied, trying to substitute the solid tube with a membrane of high stiffness, exhibiting more realistic response.