Pulsatile flow of third grade fluids under body acceleration—Modelling blood flow

Abstract

In normal life the human body is quite often subjected to acceleration. Prolonged exposure to such accelerations can generate significant effects on the blood circulation and its rheological behavior depending on the configuration and geometry of the blood vessels. The present study is concerned with a mathematical model for pulsatile blood flow subjected to externally-imposed periodic body acceleration by considering blood as a third grade fluid. The effects of the body acceleration on the velocity, the flow rate and the wall shear stress are estimated numerically through an implicit finite difference scheme for femoral and coronary arteries.