NUMERICAL SIMULATIONS OF BLOOD FLOW IN VESSELS WITH DIFFERENT GEOMETRIES

Modern scientific assumptions about the influence of biomechanical factors on the development of atherosclerosis are based partly on clinical observations that atherosclerotic lesions mainly occur at the mouths of branching vessels, in segments of high curvature or in places with sharply changing geometry, where serious changes in the structure of the blood flow can be observed. Changes in blood flow negatively affect the functioning of the cardiovascular system, leading to deformation of the arteries, which ultimately changes the local rheological properties of the blood. The study aims to overview different methods for evaluation of hemodynamics in the common carotid artery bifurcation, coronary, abdominal and its iliac branch arteries performing numerical analysis of blood flow based on Navier-Stokes equations. Determined results of velocity distribution, tangential stresses, pulse wave velocity in models of blood vessels with stenoses are analyzed. The effect of non-Newtonian blood rheological properties is discussed.