Investigation of Artery Wall Elasticity Effect on the Prediction of Atherosclerosis by Hemodynamic Factors

Abstract

Atherosclerosis is a vascular disease in which some parts of the artery undergo stenosis due to the aggregation of fat. The causes and location of stenosis can be determined using fluid mechanics and parameters such as pressure, effective wall shear stress, and oscillatory shear index (OSI). The present study, for the first time, numerically investigates the pulsatile blood flow inside arteries with elastic and rigid walls in simple and double stenosis (80% stenosis) by using k-ω model and physiological pulse. The reason for applying the k-ω model in the present study was to provide more consistent results with clinical results to improve the accuracy in estimating atherosclerosis disease. The investigation of the time-mean wall shear stress indicated that for double stenosis, the difference between the results of the rigid and elastic artery assumptions is greater than the case of simple stenosis, so that this difference percent can be up to 2.5 times. In addition, the results showed that the pressure drop for the first stenosis is greater than the second stenosis, by 810 Pa (for solid artery) and 540 Pa (for elastic artery). The results also revealed that for simple stenosis, the length of the diseases prone zone in the elastic artery is 21% longer than the rigid one which this figure for double stenosis is calculated to be about 40%. Comparing the results of the simple stenosis with double, one affirmed that the artery wall thickness growth for case of double stenosis is greater than that of the single one.