PRESSURE DROP IN CURVED ATHEROSCLEROTIC ARTERIES

摘要

The influence of fluid dynamics in atherogenesis has been intensively studied by many researchers (Caro et al., 1971, Giannoglou et al., 2002, Perktold et al., 1991, Qiu and Tarbell, 2000 ). It is widely believed that the atherosclerosis development and progression are affected by many risk factors, such as, static pressure, wall shear stress, blood viscosity, flow velocity and geometry of the artery. Amongst those, static pressure plays a very important role. The objective of this work is to numerically analyze the blood flow in curved arteries with or without the presence of atherosclerotic plaque and to reveal how does the pressure drop along the inner wall of the arteries depend on the geometry of artery, plaque size and Reynolds number. A three-dimensional mathematical model is used and the finite element method is applied to spatial variables for solving the differential equations numerically. Computations are carried out with various values of physiological parameters, such as the angle of the curved artery, the size of plaque and Reynolds number. The numerical results show the pressure drop pattern along the inner wall of the curved arteries with or without plaque.