Pulsatile flow inside moderately elastic arteries, its modelling and effects of elasticity

Pulsatile flow inside a moderately elastic circular conduit with a smooth expansion is studied as a model to understand the influence of wall elasticity in artery flow. The solution of the simultaneous fluid-wall evolution is evaluated by a perturbative method, where the zeroth order solution is represented by the flow in a rigid vessel; the first order correction gives the wall motion and induced flow modification without the need to solve the difficult coupled problem. Such an approach essentially assumes a locally infinite celerity, therefore it represent a good approximation for the fluid-wall interaction in sites of limited extent (branches, stenosis, aneurism, etc.), which include typical situations associated with vascular diseases. The problem is solved numerically in the axisymmetric approximation; the influence of wall elasticity on the flow and on the unsteady wall shear stress is studied in correspondence of parameters taken from realistic artery flow. Attention is posed to the role of phase difference between the incoming pressure and flow pulses.