PULSATILE FLOW OF VISCOELASTIC FLUIDS IN TUBES

Abstract

In this study, we present an experimental investigation of the flow structure changes in non-Newtonian fluids subjected to periodic variable fluxes inside rigid-walled tubes. We employ a liquid mixture composed of water and polyacrylamide to account for various rheological properties. We obtain the velocity fields for each experimental case using the Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) technique and we analyze their variations based on different properties of the pulsatile input signal. Reynolds numbers between 200 and 350 are considered, with a 10 % variation in amplitude.

Keywords

• blood flows
• piv
• shear-thinning fluids