Asymmetric flows of non-Newtonian fluids in symmetric stenosed artery

The hemodynamics behavior of the blood flow is influenced by the presence of the arterial stenosis. If the stenosis is present in an artery, normal blood flow is disturbed. In the present study, the characteristics of pulsatile flow in the blood vessel with stenosis are investigated by the finite volume method. For the validation of numerical model, the computation results are compared with the experimental ones of Ojha et al. in the case of 45% stenosis with a trapezoidal profile. Comparisons between the measured and the computed velocity profiles are favorable to our solutions. Finally, the effects of stenosis severity and wall shear stress are discussed in the present computational analysis. It can be seen, where the non-dimensional peak velocity is displayed for all the stenosis models at a given severity of stenosis, that it is exponentially increased. Although the stenosis and the boundary conditions are all symmetric, the asymmetric flow can be detected in the more than 57% stenosis. The instability by a three-dimensional symmetry-breaking leads to the asymmetric separation and the intense swirling motion downstream of the stenosis.