A novel approach for computing pressure drop in healthy and mildly stenosed arteries

Abstract

Blood pressure levels are highest in the arterial systemic circulation and play a crucial role in the diagnosis of local pathologies (e.g. stenoses). Under certain physiological conditions, pressure drop over healthy and mildly stenosed arteries can become important, contributing significantly to the overall pressure drop in an arterial tree. We propose a fully analytical approach for estimating the pressure drop in such arteries, using the power-law fluid to model blood flow. The studied model of the stenosis is considered axisymmetric, and having a bell shape. To validate the method, we considered three coronary epicardial vessels with different flow rate values and compared results against a previously validated model. The results showed that the proposed method is able to correctly estimate the pressure drop for healthy and mildly stenosed arteries with a stenosis grade of up to 18% (for large arteries) and 41% (for small arteries).