Research Proposal

Computational investigation of pulsatile

blood flow in the models of arterial
stenosis and aneurysm
By

Md. Abdul Karim Miah

Submitted to

Department of Mechanical and Chemical Engineering

Islamic University of Technology (IUT)
Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)
 Board Bazar, Gazipur-1704, Bangladesh
Islamic University of Technology (IUT)
Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)
Board Bazar, Gazipur 1704
(RESEARCH PROPOSAL)
Application form for the Approval of M.Sc. Thesis Proposal
Date: 25.11.2014

1. Name of the student: Md. Abdul Karim Miah

2. Student ID: 141603 Status: Part-
time Session : 2015-16
3. Present Address: IUT
4. Name of the Department: Mechanical and Chemical Engineering
5. Programme: Masters of Science
6. Date of first Enrolment 07.01.2015
in the programme:
7. Name of the Supervisor: Dr. A.K.M. Sadrul Islam, Professor & Head, MCE
Department
8. Name of the Co-Supervisor: N/A
9. Tentative Title of the Thesis: Computational investigation of pulsatile
blood flow in
the models of arterial stenosis and
aneurysm
10. Background and Present State of the Problem:

Blood flow though Artery is very complex and investigation of its flow behavior
is very important for its use in life science and medical technology. Since the
hemodynamics hypotheses of atherosclerosis were first formulated several
decades ago, flow imaging and computing have played an increasingly
important role in advancing our understanding of how blood really flows in
large arteries prone to atherosclerosis [1]. Many experimental and CFD
analysis have been done to investigate the flow disorder due to formation of
stenosis and aneurism, two most widely spread disease, in human beings
leading to the failure of cardiovascular system.

Arterial stenosis is an abnormal narrowing of one of the arteries, as defined by

the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. On the other hand
an aneurysm is an excessive localized enlargement of an artery caused by
weakness in the arterial wall. The presence of a stenosis or an aneurysm in an
artery may significantly alter the flow field and consequently the flow rate,
leading to severe pathological incidences. Stenosis increases the risk for
stroke because it reduces blood flow. The heart then needs to squeeze
(contract) harder to pump blood. Whereas the development of an aneurysm
and its continuous dilation may lead to its rupture causing death or grave
disability.

The main goal of blood flow simulation in vessels is to evaluate hemodynamic

forces which artery wall experiences due to different factors like the pulsatile
blood flow, the fluid flow geometry and the blood rheology behavior (Quasi-
Newtonian or non-Newtonian fluid). Besides, it is important to know if there is
any observable correlation between flow pattern characteristics and abnormal
biological events and arterial diseases.

It is proved that hemodynamic parameters play fundamental roles in the

regulation of vascular biology and access of arterial diseases [2]. Wall shear
stress, particle residence time, recirculation zones and arterial wall strain are
examples of hemodynamic parameters. Formations of dysfunctions in vascular
biology are results of irregular variation of these parameters.

Several numerical and experimental works have been done to observe the
blood flow behaviors using aneurysm and stenosis models considering the
flow as pulsatile. Ojha et al.[3] investigated flow behavior through arterial
stenosis experimentally. He used a Photochromic tracer method to record
pulsatile flow velocity profile. Both axisymmetric and asymmetric stenose
were used and effect of area reduction and wall shear stress variation were
examined. Mittal et al.[4] studied pulsatile blood flow through modeled arterial
stenosis consisting of a one-sided 50% semicircular constriction in a planner
channel. Peak Reynolds number and Strouhal number of the simulation are
2000 and 0.024,respectively. The flow downstream of the stenosis showed all
the classic features of post-stenotic flow. Modarres, Seyedein and Shahabi [5]
computed Hemodynamic wall parameters at three Womersley numbers and
compared them for three rheology models in the tubular flow with a smooth
local occlusion. Toufique and Dipak [6] studied the effect of pulsation, stenosis
size, Reynolds Number and Womersley number. For this they used the laminar
flow through a model arterial stenosis.

Kumar et al.[7] numerically analyzed nonlinear axisymmetric pulsatile blood

flow dynamics in rigid vessels with varying degrees of dilation using a
transient UVP finite element method (FEM). High shear stresses were noticed
near the ends of aneurysm that can lead to the development of stenosis in the
region downstream from the dilation of the vessel. Niazmand et al.[8] studied
two dimensional pulsatile blood flow through a locally expanded vessel using
three rheological models and observed effects of Womersley number variation
as a key parameter. It is found that the flow pattern around the expansion is
strongly affected by the Womersley number, while it is less sensitive to the
rheological models.

Ishikawa et al.[9] numerically analyzed pulsatile blood flow through stenosed

and locally expanded tubes to investigate the effect of vortex enhancement,
the peak frequency and the vortex enhancement mechanism. It was seen that
vortex enhancement occurs in both tubes and the vortex enhancement occurs
where the difference between the adverse pressure and the friction on the
wall is a maximum. Husain et al.[10] studied the effects of modeling blood
flow through a stenosis and an aneurysm using five different blood rheological
models and they investigated the flow field and wall shear stress distributions
produced by each model for various flow rates and degrees of abnormality.
The results show that there are significant differences between simulating
 blood as a Newtonian or non- Newtonian fluid. It is found that the Newtonian
model is a good approximation in regions of mid-range to high shear but the
Generalized Power Law model provides a better approximation of wall shear
stress at low shear.

Considerable amount of works have been done to observe the variation of

different parameters in the the blood flow in different modeled stenosis and
also aneurysm. Stenosis and aneurysm of different shapes and sizes were
studied. Comparison of flow behavior for the same sized stenosis and
aneurysm was not observed yet. So there is a scope to study on the blood flow
behavior using the stenosis and aneurysm of the same size.

11. Objectives with Specific Aims:

a. Simulation of fluid flow using modeling(mathematical physical problem
formulation) and numerical method
b. Formulation of mathematical physics problem in terms of Initial Boundary
Value Problem(IBVP)
c. Solving Navier-Stokes equation and continuity equation in the flow model by
Finite Volume Method, which converts PDEs to algebraic equations, in CFD
d. Implementation of proper initial and boundary conditions in the selected
solver to solve governing equations
e. Use of CAD software as a preprocessor of CFD to generate 2D axisymmetric
model
f. Use of mesh generator as a preprocessor of CFD to discretize the flow domain
to be imported to the solver
g. Implementation of knowledge on programming language to generate solver
compatible pulsating inlet velocity

12. Possible Outcomes:

a. From the literature simplified geometry with specific dimensions should be
found
b. The quality of the discretization of flow domain should be such that errors will
be negligible
c. Physics set up in the solver should be able to produce almost accurate results
d. Generated UDF should be able to reflect the exact velocity and can be
changed when it is needed to be applied for other pulsating flow problems
e. The CFD post processor should be able to extract the appropriate parameters
from the solver
f. Quantitative wall shear stress values for both aneurysm and stenosis should
be found to be compared
g. Vortices should be developed in or around the constricted or dilated sections
of the model
h. Flow parameters should be changed at different time steps
i. Parameters should show pick values at the accelerating sections of the
pulsating velocities

13. Outline of Methodology:

a. Generation of CAD models of arterial stenosis and aneurysm
b. Generation of Grid by ANSYS Meshing
c. Grid Independency test of the generated Mesh
d. Generation of UDF(User Defined Function) for the pulsatile inlet flow in artery
e. Simulation of blood flow using ANSYS Fluent solver
f. Finding of the upstream and downstream lengths of the models so that the
results become independent of the model lengths
g. Validating the results
h. Extraction of the required data using CFD Post.
i. Analysis of parameters to compare the risks in stenosis and aneurysms

14. References:

[1] Berger, S. A., and Liang-Der Jou. "Flows in stenotic vessels." Annual Review of
Fluid Mechanics 32.1 (2000): 347-382.

[2] Buchanan, John R., et al. "Relation between non-uniform hemodynamics and
sites of altered permeability and lesion growth at the rabbit aorto-celiac
junction." Atherosclerosis 143.1 (1999): 27-40.

[3] Ojha, Matadial, et al. "Pulsatile flow through constricted tubes: an

experimental investigation using photochromic tracer methods." Journal of fluid
mechanics 203 (1989): 173-197.

[4] Mittal, R., S. P. Simmons, and H. S. Udaykumar. "Application of large-eddy

simulation to the study of pulsatile flow in a modeled arterial stenosis." Journal
of biomechanical engineering 123.4 (2001): 325-332.

[5] Razavi, MR Modarres, S. H. Seyedein, and P. B. Shahabi. "Numerical study of

hemodynamic wall parameters on pulsatile flow through arterial stenosis." Int J
Eng Sci 17.3-4 (2006): 37-46.

[6] Hasan, ABM Toufique, and Dipak Kanti Das. "Numerical simulation of
sinusoidal fluctuated pulsatile laminar flow through stenotic artery." Journal of
Applied Fluid Mechanics 1.2 (2008): 25-35.
[7] Kumar, BV Rathish, and K. B. Naidu. "Hemodynamics in
aneurysm." Computers and biomedical research 29.2 (1996): 119-139.

[8] Niazmand, H., A. Sepehr, and P. B. Shahabi. "Numerical analysis of aneurysm

using pulsatile blood flow through a locally expanded vessel." ECCOMAS CFD
2006: Proceedings of the European Conference on Computational Fluid
Dynamics, Egmond aan Zee, The Netherlands, September 5-8, 2006. Delft
University of Technology; European Community on Computational Methods in
Applied Sciences (ECCOMAS), 2006.

[9] Ishikawa, Takuji, Shuzo Oshima, and Ryuichiro Yamane. "Vortex enhancement
in blood flow through stenosed and locally expanded tubes." Fluid Dynamics
Research 26.1 (2000): 35-52.

[10] Husain, I., C. Langdon, and J. Schwark. "Non-Newtonian pulsatile blood flow
in a modeled artery with a stenosis and an aneurysm."

15. List of courses completed :

Sl. Course Course Name Grade

No No.
.
1. MCE 6109 Mechanical Vibration A+
2. MCE 6117 Viscous Fluid Flow A+
3. MCE 6153 Boiling and Condensation A+
Heat Transfer

4. MCE 6115 Inviscid Fluid Flow A+

5. Math 6103 Advanced Mathematics A+
6. MCE 6145 Convective Heat Transfer A+

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Signature of Tabulator

16. Approximate time for completing thesis work: 30 weeks

 Sl. Task Description Estimated Time for
Completion (wks)

1. Generation of CAD models and 8

discretization

2. Simulation and Data analysis 7

3. Final analysis and verification 5

4. Final Thesis Writing 9

5. Thesis Defense 1

TOTAL 30

17. PGC/ Doctoral Committee reference:

Meeting No: Resolution No: Date:

18. Number of Post-Graduate Student(s) working

under the Supervisor at present: 3

Signature of the student: _______________________________ Date: _________

Signature of the Supervisor: ______________________________ Date: _________

Signature of the Head of the Department: ___________________ Date: _________