1,947 research outputs found
Wall Orientation and Shear Stress in the Lattice Boltzmann Model
The wall shear stress is a quantity of profound importance for clinical
diagnosis of artery diseases. The lattice Boltzmann is an easily parallelizable
numerical method of solving the flow problems, but it suffers from errors of
the velocity field near the boundaries which leads to errors in the wall shear
stress and normal vectors computed from the velocity. In this work we present a
simple formula to calculate the wall shear stress in the lattice Boltzmann
model and propose to compute wall normals, which are necessary to compute the
wall shear stress, by taking the weighted mean over boundary facets lying in a
vicinity of a wall element. We carry out several tests and observe an increase
of accuracy of computed normal vectors over other methods in two and three
dimensions. Using the scheme we compute the wall shear stress in an inclined
and bent channel fluid flow and show a minor influence of the normal on the
numerical error, implying that that the main error arises due to a corrupted
velocity field near the staircase boundary. Finally, we calculate the wall
shear stress in the human abdominal aorta in steady conditions using our method
and compare the results with a standard finite volume solver and experimental
data available in the literature. Applications of our ideas in a simplified
protocol for data preprocessing in medical applications are discussed.Comment: 9 pages, 11 figure
Non-Newtonian Rheology in Blood Circulation
Blood is a complex suspension that demonstrates several non-Newtonian
rheological characteristics such as deformation-rate dependency,
viscoelasticity and yield stress. In this paper we outline some issues related
to the non-Newtonian effects in blood circulation system and present modeling
approaches based mostly on the past work in this field.Comment: 26 pages, 5 figures, 2 table
Droplet breakup driven by shear thinning solutions in a microfluidic T-Junction
Droplet-based microfluidics turned out to be an efficient and adjustable
platform for digital analysis, encapsulation of cells, drug formulation, and
polymerase chain reaction. Typically, for most biomedical applications, the
handling of complex, non-Newtonian fluids is involved, e.g. synovial and
salivary fluids, collagen, and gel scaffolds. In this study we investigate the
problem of droplet formation occurring in a microfluidic T-shaped junction,
when the continuous phase is made of shear thinning liquids. At first, we
review in detail the breakup process providing extensive, side-by-side
comparisons between Newtonian and non-Newtonian liquids over unexplored ranges
of flow conditions and viscous responses. The non-Newtonian liquid carrying the
droplets is made of Xanthan solutions, a stiff rod-like polysaccharide
displaying a marked shear thinning rheology. By defining an effective Capillary
number, a simple yet effective methodology is used to account for the
shear-dependent viscous response occurring at the breakup. The droplet size can
be predicted over a wide range of flow conditions simply by knowing the
rheology of the bulk continuous phase. Experimental results are complemented
with numerical simulations of purely shear thinning fluids using Lattice
Boltzmann models. The good agreement between the experimental and numerical
data confirm the validity of the proposed rescaling with the effective
Capillary number.Comment: Manuscript: 11 pages 5 figures, 65 References. Textual Supplemental
Material: 6 pages 3 figure. Video Supplemental Materials: 2 movie
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Severity parameter and global importance factor of non-newtonian models in 3D reconstructed human left coronary artery
This paper was presented at the 3rd Micro and Nano Flows Conference (MNF2011), which was held at the Makedonia Palace Hotel, Thessaloniki in Greece. The conference was organised by Brunel University and supported by the Italian Union of Thermofluiddynamics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, University of Thessaly, IPEM, the Process Intensification Network, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the Heat Transfer Society, HEXAG - the Heat Exchange Action Group, and the Energy Institute.The capabilities and limitations of various molecular viscosity models, when testing Left Coronary Artery (LCA) tree, were analyzed via: molecular viscosity, local and global non-Newtonian importance factors, Wall Shear Stress (WSS) and Wall Shear Stress Gradient (WSSG). Seven non-Newtonian molecular viscosity models, plus the Newtonian one, were compared. Dense grid of 620000 nodes located, mostly, at near to low WSS flow regions (endothelium regions) is needed for current LCA application. The WSS
distribution yields a consistent LCA pattern for nearly all non-Newtonian models. High molecular viscosity, low WSS low WSSG values appear at proximal LCA regions at the outer walls of the major bifurcation. The global importance factor for the non-Newtonian power law model yields 76.7% (non-Newtonian flow), while for the Generalized power law model this value is 6.1% (Newtonian flow). The capabilities of the applied non-Newtonian law models appear at low strain rates. The Newtonian blood flow treatment is considered to be a good approximation at mid-and high-strain rates. In general, the non-Newtonian power law and the Generalized power law blood viscosity models are considered to approximate the molecular viscosity and WSS calculations in a more satisfactory way
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