Numerical Simulation of Non-Newtonian Blood Flow through a Tapered Stenosed Artery using the Cross Model

A Non-Newtonian model is used to examine the effect of tapering on the flow of blood along a stenosed artery which is caused by the pulsating nature the heart. The constitutive equation of the Cross model is used to capture the rheology of the streaming blood which accounts for the shear thinning behaviour of blood. The flow is considered to be laminar, incompressible, and axisymmetric. The finite- difference scheme was adopted to solve the non-linear equations describing the fluid motion in an unsteady two-dimensional case. The computation is presented in terms of the axial and radial velocities, volumetric flow rate, resistance to flow and the wall shear stress. The result from the numerical simulation clearly indicates that vessel tapering has considerable effect on the flow pattern of blood: as the tapering angle increases the flow rate and the axial velocity increases proportionately while the radial velocity, wall shear stress decreases and resistance to flow.