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ENCIT 2020
18th Brazilian Congress of Thermal Sciences and Engineering
ANALYSIS OF BLOOD FLOW IN THE CAROTID ARTERY USING COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS
Submission Author:
Isabel Caetano da Silva , RJ
Co-Authors:
Isabel Caetano da Silva, Livia Jatoba
Presenter: Isabel Caetano da Silva
doi://10.26678/ABCM.ENCIT2020.CIT20-0408
Abstract
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is an important tool in technological development in different areas. Its application in bioengineering is known as Computational Hemodynamics, a field that studies the blood flow in the circulatory system. Computational Hemodynamics helps bioengineering to understand cardiovascular diseases and improve treatments. The present work studied the pulsatile blood flow in a three-dimensional model of the carotid artery. It was developed using open-source softwares and tools, providing an open and accessible methodology. The open-source fluid-flow software OpenFOAM, was used to solve the hemodynamics of the carotid flow. The blood flow regime is pulsatile, where the diastole phase is when the heart muscle relaxes and fills with blood, and the systole phase is when the heart cavity contracts and blood is ejected into the arteries. The hemodynamics in the carotid artery was solved for an incompressible, laminar and Newtonian fluid flow. Three heart frequencies were considered: 65, 80 and 100 bpm. A three-dimensional model of the carotid artery bifurcation was considered and the FreeCAD was used. The computational meshes were created using the software cfMesh. Post-processing tools such as ParaView and Gnuplot were used to visualize and analyze the results. The streamlines and velocity profiles show back flow, or recirculation, both in the internal carotid artery and in the external carotid artery, where the back flow is observed with greater intensity in the internal artery, due to the sinus geometry. Therefore, the carotid bifurcation is more prone to the deposition of plaques in the blood. These preliminary simulations show that blood behavior is strongly dependent on its geometric characteristics and that the carotid artery has regions of back flow, which may favor the appearance of atherosclerosis.
Keywords
OpenFOAM, CFD, Carotid Artery, Pulsatile Flow, hemodynamics
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