Effect of pulse rate variation on blood flow through axisymmetric and asymmetric stenotic artery models

The present work reports numerical simulations of blood flow patterns and wall shear stress (WSS) distributions in stenotic arteries, modelled as straight tubes. Inflow waveforms have been generated for different pulse rates considering constant volumetric flow during each pulsation cycle and a two-element windkessel model has been used to specify the outlet pressure. It is noticed that the non-Newtonian shear thinning rheology of blood produces more accurate and realistic predictions of the flow field as compared to the Newtonian assumption. Further, the effects of variation of pulse rates on the spatial and temporal distribution of WSS and oscillatory shear index (OSI) have also been studied for both axisymmetric and asymmetric stenosis. The changes in the mean flow features due to changes in pulsation frequencies have also been reported.