Numerical study of physiological turbulent flows through series arterial stenoses

Abstract

A numerical investigation on the characteristics of transitional turbulent flow over series bell-shape stenoses for a physiological pulsatile flow is presented in the present study. The flow behaviours for the physiological pulsatile flow are studied by considering the effects of the Reynolds number, Womersley number, constriction ratio and spacing ratio of the stenoses on the pulsatile turbulent flow fields. Especially, the mutual influences between the double stenoses under different flow conditions are considered. The numerical results show that the variation of these flow parameters puts significant impacts on the flow developments in the arteries with series stenoses. The double stenoses lead to the higher peak turbulence disturbance and the greater area with comparatively high turbulence intensity distal to the stenoses in comparison with the single stenosis. The analysis shows that for the physiological pulsatile flow, the downstream stenosis usually does not have perceptible influences on the upstream flow fields. © 2004 John Wiley and Sons, Ltd.