Numerical Study of the Significance of the Non-Newtonian Nature of Blood in Steady Flow Through a Stenosed Vessel

In this paper we present a comparative numerical study of non-Newtonian shear-thinning and viscoelastic blood flow models through an idealized stenosis. Three-dimensional numerical simulations are performed using a finite volume semi-discretization in space, on structured grids, and a multistage Runge-Kutta scheme for time integration, to investigate the influence of combined effects of inertia, viscosity and viscoelasticity in this particular geometry. This work lays the foundation for future applications to pulsatile flows in stenosed vessels using constitutive models capturing the rheological response of blood, under relevant physiological conditions.