Numerical simulation of blood pulsatile flow in stenotic coronary arteries: The effect of turbulence modeling and non-Newtonian assumptions

Abstract

Atherosclerosis is a common cardiovascular disease characterized by the accumulation of plaques on the artery walls, resulting in the lumen stenosis. Over the past few decades, this pathological condition has been deeply studied and computational fluid dynamics has played an important role in investigating the blood flow behavior. Commonly, the blood flow is assumed to be laminar and a Newtonian fluid. However, under a stenotic condition, the blood behaves as a non-Newtonian fluid and the pulsatile blood flow through coronary arteries could result in a transition from laminar to turbulent flow condition. The aim of the present study is to analyze and compare numerically by means of CFD the blood flow behavior, applying the k-ω SST model and a laminar assumption. The effects of Newtonian and non-Newtonian (Carreau) models were also studied. According to the results, the turbulent model is shown to give a better overall representation of pulsatile flow in stenotic arteries. In addition, the effect of non-Newtonian modeling was found to be more significant in wall shear stress measurements than in velocity profiles.