Flow in T-bifurcations: effect of the sharpness of the flow divider

The local geometry of a bifurcation has been hypothesized to be a potential geometrical risk factor for the development of atherosclerosis. While flow division and branch area ratios clearly affect the flow field, the importance of the flow divider shape is not as clear. A fast spectral element computational fluid mechanics (CFD) solver was used to simulate flow through 90 degrees T-bifurcations with three different flow divider shapes. Other factors, such as flow partition, area ratio, and bifurcation angle, were kept constant. A Reynolds number range of 15 to 350 was studied to bracket experimental results in the literature. The variation in the sharpness of the corners had a dramatic effect on both the flow field and wall shear stress distribution in the side branch, but little effect on the flow in the main tube. The magnitude of reverse velocities and wall shear stress in the side branch increased linearly over a physiological range of Reynolds number and corner shape. This paper verifies the accuracy and usefulness of spectral element CFD in studying three-dimensional hemodynamics.