LES of pulsatile flow in the models of arterial stenosis and aneurysm (original) (raw)

Large–Eddy simulation of pulsatile blood flow

Large–Eddy simulation (LES) is performed to study pulsatile blood flow through a 3D model of arterial stenosis. The model is chosen as a simple channel with a biological type stenosis formed on the top wall. A sinusoidal non-additive type pulsation is assumed at the inlet of the model to generate time dependent oscillating flow in the channel and the Reynolds number of 1200, based on the channel height and the bulk velocity, is chosen in the simulations. We investigate in detail the transition-to-turbulent phenomena of the non-additive pulsatile blood flow downstream of the stenosis. Results show that the high level of flow recirculation associated with complex patterns of transient blood flow have a significant contribution to the generation of the turbulent fluctuations found in the post-stenosis region. The importance of using LES in modelling pulsatile blood flow is also assessed in the paper through the prediction of its sub-grid scale contributions. In addition, some important results of the flow physics are achieved from the simulations, these are presented in the paper in terms of blood flow velocity, pressure distribution, vortices, shear stress, turbulent fluctuations and energy spectra, along with their importance to the relevant medical pathophysiology.

Large-Eddy Simulation of Physiological Pulsatile non-Newtonian Flow in a Channel with Double Constriction

Proceedings of the 13th Asian Congress of Fluid Mechanics 17-21 December 2010, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Physiological pulsatile flow in a 3D model of arterial double stenosis, using the modified Power-law blood viscosity model, is investigated by applying Large Eddy Simulation (LES) technique. The computational domain has been chosen is a simple channel with biological type stenoses. The physiological pulsation is generated at the inlet of the model using the first four harmonics of the Fourier series of the physiological pressure pulse. In LES, a top-hat spatial grid-filter is applied to the Navier-Stokes equations of motion to separate the large scale flows from the subgrid scale (SGS). The large scale flows are then resolved fully while the unresolved SGS motions are modelled using the localized dynamic model. The flow Reynolds numbers which are typical of those found in human large artery are chosen in the present work. Transitions to turbulent of the pulsatile non-Newtonian along with Newtonian flow in the post stenosis are examined through the mean velocity, wall shear stress, mean streamlines as well as turbulent kinetic energy and explained physically along with the relevant medical concerns.

Application of Large-Eddy Simulation to the Study of Pulsatile Flow in a Modeled Arterial Stenosis

Journal of Biomechanical Engineering, 2001

The technique of large-eddy simulation (LES) has been applied to the study of pulsatile flow through a modeled arterial stenosis. A simple stenosis model has been used that consists of a one-sided 50 percent semicircular constriction in a planar channel. The inlet volume flux is varied sinusoidally in time in a manner similar to the laminar flow simulations of Tutty (1992). LES is used to compute flow at a peak Reynolds number of 2000 and a Strouhal number of 0.024. At this Reynolds number, the flow downstream of the stenosis transitions to turbulence and exhibits all the classic features of post-stenotic flow as described by Khalifa and Giddens (1981) and Lieber and Giddens (1990). These include the periodic shedding of shear layer vortices and transition to turbulence downstream of the stenosis. Computed frequency spectra indicate that the vortex shedding occurs at a distinct high frequency, and the potential implication of this for noninvasive diagnosis of arterial stenoses is di...

Investigation of physiological pulsatile flow in a model arterial stenosis using large-eddy and direct numerical simulations

"Physiological pulsatile flow in a 3D model of arterial stenosis is investigated by using large eddy simulation (LES) technique. The computational domain chosen is a simple channel with a biological type stenosis formed eccentrically on the top wall. The physiological pulsation is generated at the inlet using the first harmonic of the Fourier series of pressure pulse. In LES, the large scale flows are resolved fully while the unresolved subgrid scale (SGS) motions are modelled using a localized dynamic model. Due to the narrowing of artery the pulsatile flow becomes transition-to-turbulent in the downstream region of the stenosis, where a high level of turbulent fluctuations is achieved, and some detailed information about the nature of these fluctuations are revealed through the investigation of the turbulent energy spectra. Transition-to-turbulent of the pulsatileflowin the post stenosis is examined through the various numerical results such as velocity, streamlines, velocity vectors, vortices, wall pressure and shear stresses, turbulent kinetic energy, and pressure gradient. A comparison of the LES results with the coarse DNS are given for the Reynolds number of 2000 in terms of the mean pressure, wall shear stress as well as the turbulent characteristics. The results show that the shear stress at the upper wall is low just prior to the centre of the stenosis, while it is maximum in the throat of the stenosis. But, at the immediate post stenotic region, the wall shear stress takes the oscillating form which is quite harmful to the blood cells and vessels. In addition, the pressure drops at the throat of the stenosis where the re-circulated flow region is created due to the adverse pressure gradient. The maximum turbulent kinetic energy is located at the post stenosis with the presence of the inertial sub-range region of slope 5/3."

Large Eddy Simulation of Pulsatile Flow through a Channel with Double Constriction

Pulsatile flow in a 3D model of arterial double stenoses is investigated using a large eddy simulation (LES) technique. The computational domain that has been chosen is a simple channel with a biological-type stenosis formed eccentrically on the top wall. The pulsation was generated at the inlet using the first four harmonics of the Fourier series of the pressure pulse. The flow Reynolds numbers, which are typically suitable for a large human artery, are chosen in the present work. In LES, a top-hat spatial grid-filter is applied to the Navier-Stokes equations of motion to separate the large-scale flows from the sub-grid scale (SGS). The large-scale flows are then resolved fully while the unresolved SGS motions are modelled using a localized dynamic model. It is found that the narrowing of the channel causes the pulsatile flow to undergo a transition to a turbulent condition in the downstream region; as a consequence, a severe level of turbulent fluctuations is achieved in these zones. Transitions to turbulent of the pulsatile flow in the post stenosis are examined through the various numerical results, such as velocity, streamlines, wall pressure, shear stresses and root mean square turbulent fluctuations.

LES of additive and non-additive pulsatile flows in a model arterial stenosis

Transition of additive and non-additive pulsatile flows through a simple 3D model of arterial stenosis is investigated by using a large eddy simulation (LES) technique. We find in both the pulsatile cases that the interaction of the two shear layers, one of which separates from the nose of the stenosis and the another one from its opposite wall, causes recirculation in the flow downstream of the stenosis where the nature of the transient flow becomes turbulent. The strength of this recirculation is found to be quite high from the non-additive pulsations when the flow Reynolds numbers, Re $ 1500, for which both the pressure and shearing stresses take on an oscillating form at the post-stenotic region. Potential medical consequences of these results are discussed in the paper. In addition, some comparisons of the non-additive pulsatile results are given with those of both the additive pulsatile and steady flows. The capability of using LES to simulate the pulsatile transitional flow is also assessed, and the present results show that the smaller (subgrid) scales (SGS) contributes about 78% energy dissipation to the flow when the Reynolds number is taken as 2000. The level of SGS dissipation decreases as the Reynolds number is decreased. The numerical results are validated with the experimental data available in literature where a quite good agreement is found.

Large Eddy Simulation of Transitional Flow in an Idealized Stenotic Blood Vessel: Evaluation of Subgrid Scale Models

Journal of Biomechanical Engineering, 2014

In the present study, we performed large eddy simulation (LES) of axisymmetric, and 75% stenosed, eccentric arterial models with steady inflow conditions at a Reynolds number of 1000. The results obtained are compared with the direct numerical simulation (DNS) data (Varghese et al., 2007, “Direct Numerical Simulation of Stenotic Flows. Part 1. Steady Flow,” J. Fluid Mech., 582, pp. 253–280). An inhouse code (WenoHemo) employing high-order numerical methods for spatial and temporal terms, along with a 2nd order accurate ghost point immersed boundary method (IBM) (Mark, and Vanwachem, 2008, “Derivation and Validation of a Novel Implicit Second-Order Accurate Immersed Boundary Method,” J. Comput. Phys., 227(13), pp. 6660–6680) for enforcing boundary conditions on curved geometries is used for simulations. Three subgrid scale (SGS) models, namely, the classical Smagorinsky model (Smagorinsky, 1963, “General Circulation Experiments With the Primitive Equations,” Mon. Weather Rev., 91(10)...

LES of non-Newtonian physiological blood flow in a model of arterial stenosis

Medical Engineering & Physics, 34 (2012), pp. 1079-1087

Large Eddy Simulation (LES) is performed to study the physiological pulsatile transition-to-turbulent non-Newtonian blood flow through a 3D model of arterial stenosis by using five different blood viscosity models: (i) Power-law, (ii) Carreau, (iii) Quemada, (iv) Cross and (v) modified-Casson. The computational domain has been chosen is a simple channel with a biological type stenosis formed eccentrically on the top wall. The physiological pulsation is generated at the inlet of the model using the first four harmonic series of the physiological pressure pulse (Loudon and Tordesillas [1]). The effects of the various viscosity models are investigated in terms of the global maximum shear rate, post-stenotic re-circulation zone, mean shear stress, mean pressure, and turbulent kinetic energy. We find that the non-Newtonian viscosity models enlarge the length of the post-stenotic re-circulation region by moving the reattachment point of the shear layer separating from the upper wall further downstream. But the turbulent kinetic energy at the immediate post-lip of the stenosis drops due to the effects of the non-Newtonian viscosity. The importance of using LES in modelling the non-Newtonian physiological pulsatile blood flow is also assessed for the different viscosity models in terms of the results of the dynamic subgrid-scale (SGS) stress Smagorinsky model constant, Cs, and the corresponding SGS normalised viscosity.

Numerical study of pulsatile channel flows undergoing transition triggered by a modelled stenosis

Physics of Fluids 24 121901 (2012); doi: 10.1063/1.4771604

In this research, we numerically investigate the physics of pulsatile flows confined within a 3-dimensional channel with a modelled stenosis formed eccentrically on the upper wall using the method of large-eddy simulation (LES). An advanced dynamic nonlinear subgrid-scale stress model was utilized to conduct numerical simulations and its predictive performance was examined in comparison with that of the conventional dynamic model. The Womersley number tested in the simulation was fixed at 10.5 and the Reynolds numbers tested were set to 750 and 2000, which are characteristics of human blood flows in large arteries. An in-house LES code, based on curvilinear Cartesian coordinates, has been developed to conduct the unsteady numerical simulations using three different grid systems. The physical characteristics of the flow field have been studied in terms of the resolved mean velocity, turbulence kinetic energy, viscous wall shear stress, resolved and subgrid-scale turbulent shear stresses, local kinetic energy fluxes between the filtered and subgrid scales, and turbulence energy spectra along the central streamline of the domain. Triggered by the stenosis, the flow field driven by the pulsatile inlet condition undergoes laminarturbulent-laminar patterns in the streamwise direction. Correspondingly, the slope of the energy spectra deviates significantly from the well-known −5/3 law for the inertial subrange to reflect the transition in the flow patterns.

Direct numerical simulation of physiological pulsatile flow through a stenotic channel

In this paper, direct numerical simulation (DNS) is used to simulate the physiological pulsatile flow in a constricted channel to gain insight into the transition-to-turbulent flow in an artificial arterial stenosis. An in-house code has been developed using OpenMP and DNS was performed based on available high performance shared memory parallel computing facilities. The Womersley number tested was fixed to 10.5 and the Reynolds number was varied from 800 to 1800 in the simulation. The physical characteristics of the flow field have been thoroughly analyzed in terms of the mean streamwise velocity, the root mean square (RMS) velocities, turbulence kinetic energy (TKE), viscous wall shear stresses and wall pressure.