Particulate suspension Jeffrey fluid flow in a stenosed artery with a particle-free plasma layer near the wall

Abstract

The present article concerns the problem of blood flow through an artery with an axially asymmetric stenosis (constriction). The two-layered macroscopic model consisting of a cell-rich core of suspension of all the erythrocytes described as a particle-fluid suspension (Jeffrey fluid) and a peripheral zone of cell-free plasma (Newtonian fluid). The analytical expressions for flow characteristics such as fluid phase and particle phase velocities, flow rate, wall shear stress, and resistive force are obtained. It is of interest to mention that the magnitudes of wall shear stress and flow resistance increase with red cell concentration but the flow resistance decreases with increasing shape parameter. One of the important observations is that when blood behaves like a Jeffrey fluid, the flowing blood experiences lesser wall shear stress and flow resistance than in the case of blood being characterized as a Newtonian fluid in both the particle-fluid suspension and particle- free flow studies. The rheology of blood as Jeffrey fluid and the introduction of plasma layer thickness cause significant reduction in the magnitudes of the flow characteristics.