A NUMERICAL STUDY OF WALL SHEAR STRESS OF VISCOUS FLOWS IN CURVED ATHEROSCLEROTIC TUBES

摘要

Atherosclerosis is a disease of large- and medium-size arteries, which Wolves complex interactions between the artery wall and the blood flow. Both clinical observations and experimental results showed that the fluid shear stress acting on the artery wall plays a significant role in the physical processes which lead to atherosclerosis. Therefore, a sound understanding of the effect of the wall shear stress on atherosclerosis is of practical importance to early detection, prevention and treatment of the disease. A considerable number of studies have been performed to investigate the flow phenomena in human carotid artery bifurcations or curved tubes during the past decades. Numerical studies have supported the experimental results on the correlation between blood flow parameters and atherosclerosis. The objective of this work is to understand the effect of the wall shear stress on atherosclerosis. The mathematical description of pulsatile blood flows is modeled by applying the time-dependent, incompressible Navier-Stokes equations for Newtonian fluids.