MATHEMATICAL MODELING OF BLOOD FLOW IN ARTERIES SUBJECT TO A VIBRATING ENVIRONMENT

Abstract

A mathematical model has been developed in this paper with an aim to study arterial blood flow in a vibration environment. Blood is treated as a couple stress fluid. Oscillatory flow in a porous channel is considered in the study, when the flow takes place under the action of an external pressure gradient. The fluid flows between two porous plates lying parallel to each other. The fluid is considered to be injected on one plate with a constant velocity. The plates are considered to be oscillating with the same frequency in their own planes. However, the plate velocity of single-harmonic oscillation is not constant. The effects of various parameters representing couple stress, suction and magnitude of the oscillating pressure gradient on the velocity profile and wall shear stress are discussed. It is found that the presence of couple stress in the fluid enhances the velocity of the fluid in both axial and transverse directions, while a reverse phenomenon is observed for the wall shear stress.