Pulsatile flow of couple stress fluid through a bifurcated artery

Abstract

In the present paper, the pulsatile flow of blood through a bifurcated artery with mild stenosis in parent artery is investigated by taking blood as couple stress fluid. The arteries pattern of bifurcation is treated to be symmetric about the axis of the parent artery and straight circular cylinders of limited length. The governing equations are made dimensionless and suitable coordinate transformation is used to convert the irregular boundary to a well designed boundary. The resulting system of equations is solved numerically using the finite difference method. The influence of physical parameters on the velocity, shear stress, flow rate and impedance near the apex is studied graphically. Further, the oscillatory nature of impedance, flow rate and shear stress against time near the apex in both parent and daughter arteries is presented. Keywords: Blood flow, Pulsatile flow, Couple stress fluid, Bifurcated artery, Impedance