Wall shear stress distribution of non-Newtonian blood flow in stenosed bifurcated artery

Abstract

Localized plaque causes narrowing of the arterial wall, resulting in an alteration in the flow structure, reducing the flow of fluids reaching the heart and resulting in heart attacks. The formation of stenosis could disturb the normal hemodynamics in blood rheology. A bifurcated artery with different types of stenosis is considered in order to illustrate the four possible formations of plaque between healthy and diseased arteries. Due to the fact that a diseased artery is reported to be less compliant, the artery wall is modelled as a two-dimensional rigid wall. In this model, blood flow is assumed to be steady, laminar, incompressible, and characterized as a generalized power-law model that is non-Newtonian in nature. The numerical simulation is performed using COMSOL Multiphysics, which is based on finite element method. Based on simulation results, different types of stenosis in the bifurcated artery have a significant impact on velocity profiles and wall shear stresses.