Comparison of blood rheological models for physiological flow simulation

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Neofytou, Panagiotis

Affiliations: Environmental Research Laboratory, Institute of Nuclear Technology and Radiation Protection, National Centre for Scientific Research “Demokritos”, Agia Paraskevi, 15310 Athens, Greece Tel.: +30 210 6503403; Fax: +30 210 6525004; E‐mail: panosn@ipta.demokritos.gr

Abstract: The present study investigates the flow effects that different blood constitutive equations induce when employed in numerical simulations in the framework of computational hemodynamics. In accord with experimental studies on the rheological behavior of blood, three blood constitutive equations namely the Casson, Power‐Law and Quemada models were used for simulating the shear flow behavior of blood. The case studied is the flow in a channel with a moving part of the boundary and was selected because it reproduces the flow phenomena occurring in realistic arterial conditions. Flow simulation for every model is carried out assuming the same flow rate at the inlet of the channel and different Strouhal numbers reflecting different intensities of the boundary movement. Results show that the modeling of blood as non‐Newtonian fluid has marked qualitative and quantitative effects on both the flow field and the wall shear stress whereas comparison of the different models shows good agreement between the flow effects by the Casson and Quemada models.

Keywords: Blood models, non‐Newtonian flow, computational fluid dynamics, moving‐boundary flow, unsteady flow

Journal: Biorheology, vol. 41, no. 6, pp. 693-714, 2004