Computational fluid dynamics of coronary arteries with implanted stents: Effects of Newtonian and non-Newtonian blood flows

Abstract

This study introduces and compares computational fluid dynamics of Newtonian and non-Newtonian blood flows in coronary arteries, with and without considering stents. Three blood flow models, including Newtonian, Carreau, and non-Newtonian power-law models, were simulated to investigate their effect, and the solution algorithm includes drawing the geometry, creating the desired mesh, and then simulating Newtonian and non-Newtonian blood flow different models and comparing them with each other, is presented in the article. A Newtonian fluid model has been commonly used in the simulation of blood flow, whereas blood has non-Newtonian properties due to the nature of a solution containing suspended particles. The goal of this research is to investigate the differences between the models built with Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluid assumptions. In addition, a stent was designed and the effect of the stent on blood flow parameters was investigated for all three flow models, including Newtonian, Carreau, and non-Newtonian power-law models. Stents are medical devices that can be placed in arteries to open up blood flow in a blocked vessel. Stents can affect the wall shear stress. Knowing the slight deformation of the shear stress makes the importance of stent implantation and also helps to optimize the design of the intravascular stent, which can affect the occlusion of the vessels. The distribution of the velocity, pressure, and wall shear stress in all blood flow models with and without considering the effect of stents have been investigated and finally compared. Therefore, in general, the innovation of this article is to find the effect of implanted stents on blood flow parameters with different blood flow models, both Newtonian and non-Newtonian. A comparison of Newtonian and non-Newtonian flows showed that in the case of the Carreau non-Newtonian model, the wall shear stress was higher. In addition, in the results of the geometric model with a stent effect compared to the geometric model without a stent effect, it is evident that there was a higher velocity and wall shear stress.