Unsteady two-dimensional blood flow in porous artery with multi-irregular stenosis

Abstract

The flow characteristics of an unsteady axisymmetric two-dimensional (2D) blood flow in a diseased porous arterial segment with flexible walls are investigated. The arterial walls mimic the irregular constrictions whereas the lumen containing the thrombus, cholesterol, and fatty plaques represents the porous medium. The governing equations with appropriate initial and boundary conditions are solved numerically using MAC method. The discretization is done on staggered grid with non-uniform grid size and pressure-poisson equation is solved following SOR method. The pressure and velocity corrections are made cyclically until the steady state is achieved. It is observed that for decreasing permeability, flow is highly decelerated while pressure drop and wall shear stress increases. The separation zones and re-circulation regions are found for severe stenoses. Flow separation and re-circulation diminishes for decreasing permeability of the porous medium. Comparisons are provided with published experimental and numerical results