A stabilized mixed finite element method for shear-rate dependent non-Newtonian fluids: 3D benchmark problems and application to blood flow in bifurcating arteries

摘要

This paper presents a stabilized mixed finite element method for shear-rate dependent fluids. The nonlinear viscosity field is a function of the shear-rate and varies uniformly in space and in time. The stabilized form is developed via application of Variational Multiscale (VMS) framework to the underlying generalized Navier–Stokes equation. Linear and quadratic tetrahedral and hexahedral elements are employed with equal-order interpolations for the velocity and pressure fields. A variety of benchmark problems are solved to assess the stability and accuracy properties of the resulting method. The method is then applied to non-Newtonian shear-rate dependent flows in bifurcating artery geometry, and significant non-Newtonian fluid effects are observed. A comparative study of the proposed method shows that the additional computational costs due to the nonlinear shearrate dependent viscosity are only ten percent more than the computational cost for a Newtonian model.