Effect of Bifurcation Angle on Blood Flow in Flexible Carotid Artery

To investigate the effect of the flexible artery wall on the blood flow, three-dimensional numerical simulations were carried out for analyzing the time-dependent incompressible flows of Newtonian fluids constrained by a flexible wall. The Navier-Stokes equations for fluid flow were solved using the P2P1 Galerkin finite element method, and mesh movement was achieved using an arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian formulation. The Newmark method was employed for solving the dynamic equilibrium equations for the deformation of a linear elastic solid. To avoid complexity due to the necessity of additional mechanical constraints, we used a combined formulation that includes both the fluid and structure equations of motion to produce a single coupled variational equation. The results showed that the flexibility of the carotid wall significantly affects flow phenomena during the pulse cycle. The flow field was also found to be strongly influenced by the bifurcation angle.