Numerical Investigation of Pulsatile Blood Flow and Hemodynamic Indicators in Stenosed Arteries

Abstract — Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has become a very useful engineering approach for investigating cardiovascular hemodynamics and supporting non-invasive vascular assessment. Although conventional medical imaging and blood pressure measurement techniques are widely used for cardiovascular evaluation, detailed analysis of internal arterial hemodynamic behavior remains challenging. Therefore, the present study numerically investigated pulsatile blood flow behavior in healthy and stenosed arteries under different physiological conditions using CFD analysis. Three-dimensional healthy, 25%, 50%, and 60% stenosed arterial models of bifurcated brachial artery were developed using SOLIDWORKS and simulated in ANSYS Fluent under both steady and transient flow conditions using Newtonian and non-Newtonian blood assumptions. The obtained results demonstrated significant influence of stenosis severity on velocity distribution, pressure variation, wall shear stress (WSS), and flow recirculation behavior. Severe stenosed models exhibited increased velocity magnitude and wall shear stress (WSS) concentration at the stenosis region, along with a noticeable pressure drop immediately downstream of the stenosis due to intensified flow disturbance. In addition, noticeable recirculation regions were observed near the bifurcation entrance in healthy and low stenosed models, whereas highly stenosed cases exhibited more dominant recirculation behavior around the stenosis region. The developed CFD models successfully represented major arterial hemodynamic characteristics under different physiological conditions and demonstrated good agreement with relevant previously published studies. The study highlights the potential of CFD as a cost-effective and non-surgical engineering tool for supporting cardiovascular analysis, vascular disease assessment, and future patient-specific diagnostic applications.