Numerical simulation of blood flow in abdominal aortic aneurysms: Effects of blood shear-thinning and viscoelastic properties

In this study numerical simulation of blood flow in abdominal aortic aneurysms is presented. The novelty in this study is the consideration of the blood viscoelastic properties to account for the presence of red blood cells in addition to the shear-thinning behavior. The Oldroyd-B model is used to account for the viscoelasticity while the Carreau-Yasuda model is used to represent the shear-thinning property. The artery with its aneurysms is modeled as a planar channel with rigid wavy walls. The governing equations are solved numerically using the Galerkin/least-squares finite element method. Results are obtained for different values of flow rate under steady conditions. Our results assert that the blood shear-thinning behavior and viscoelasticity cannot be neglected especially for low shear rates conditions. (C) 2018 International Association for Mathematics and Computers in Simulation (IMACS). Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.