Effect of Catheter and Stenosis on Solute Diffusion in Non-Newtonian Blood Flow through a Catheterized Stenosed Artery

The presence of stenosis at the wall of the artery lead to further cardiovascular diseases such as heart attack, stroke and many more. Treatment of a stenosed artery includes the insertion of a catheter through the artery which affects the blood flow and solute dispersion. This present study focuses on the effect of catheter radius and stenosis height on the blood flow and solute dispersion behavior. The problem is modelled using the Herschel-Bulkley fluid to represent the blood rheology, with catheter and stenosis as the boundary conditions. Analytical solutions in integral form are obtained by solving the momentum equation and Herschel-Bulkley constitutive equation. The integrals are numerically evaluated using the Simpson’s 3/8 rule and Regula-Falsi method to obtain the blood velocity. The obtained velocity is employed into the unsteady convective-diffusion equation and solved using the generalized dispersion model (GDM) to analyse the behaviour of solute diffusion. The influence of catheter radius and stenosis height on the diffusion coefficient and mean concentration of solute are observed. Results show that the diffusion coefficient decreases as the catheter radius and stenosis height increases. A decrease in diffusion coefficient simultaneously increases the solute mean concentration.