COMPUTATIONAL MODEL OF PLATELET FLOW IN CAROTID ARTERY BIFURCATION

Abstract

Atherosclerotic plaque tends to occur and develop in carotid artery sinus, where stenoses and other lesions can cause cerebral disturbances. The hemodynamics and the platelet profiles in the carotid artery are simultaneously simulated in the present study to reveal the mechanism of the atherosclerotic plaque formation. Firstly, an unsteady PISO solver on unstructured tetrahedral grids is developed to simulate the hemodynamics of carotid artery bifurcation. And small platelets are treated as spherical solid particle described by Newtonian motion equation in the simulation, including inertial force, drag force, shear lift force, virtual mass force and pressure gradient force. Secondly, the visualization experiment for the platelet flow in the straight micro-channel is setup to validate the numerical model. Using the present method, the platelet flow in a carotid artery bifurcation is analyzed. The results show that the outer vascular wall near the bifurcation is more vulnerable in carotid artery sinus, which is mainly due to the lower wall shear stress (WSS) and platelets backflow in the region.