Does a non-Newtonian blood flow model alter the calculated central velocity and wall shear stress compared to a Newtonian model in a carotid artery bifurcation?
Non-Newtonian blood flow models yield significantly higher central velocity and wall shear stress estimates in carotid artery bifurcations compared to Newtonian models, highlighting the importance of fluid viscosity assumptions in hemodynamic modeling.
The current study presents three-dimensional modelling and analysis of blood flow through carotid artery bifurcation in multiple cases hemodynamics modelling of fluid viscosity. The study considered Newtonian and non-Newtonian blood flow models and solved the three-dimensional laminar and steady Naiver-Stokes (NS) equations for different inlet velocity profiles. Two methods were used to define dynamic viscosity the Carreau Yasuda model and power law non-Newtonian. A comparative analysis was carried out for Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluid models under simple pulsatile, equivalent pulsatile and physiological velocity profiles. The non-Newtonian model in Carreau and power law non-Newtonian showed a higher central velocity than the Newtonian model about 10%. The non-Newtonian model showed 80% higher Wall shear stresses, either the pressure results on the arterial wall were similar in all models.
Hammoud et al. (Tue,) studied this question.