Investigation of Blood Flow Model taking account of Mass Transport through the Arterial Wall

Atherosclerosis, which might be a trigger of heart or cerebral blood vessel disease, has been considered to be caused by the permeation of LDL(Low Density Lipoprotein), associated with the increase of LDL concentration in the blood flow. We introduced “multi-layer model” which considered intima and media as a porous medium, then developed a coupled analysis system between fluid dynamics and mass transport analysis in the lumen and the arterial wall. This study is being performed under the research program of this institute, called “Development of revolutionary simulation software: Integrated simulation of multi-scale and multi-physics in the cardiovascular

system”

Fig.1 Scheme of mass transport in the arterial wall:This scheme satisfies Kedem-Katchalsky’s law which governs mass flux and concentration flux at the endothelium and internal elastic lamina

Distribution of wall shear stress at the bifurcation area of carotid artery(left).
Distribution of concentration flux (right)

It was confirmed that there is an area of low wall shear stress at the lower course of the internal carotid artery. Furthermore, it was also confirmed that large mass flux is invoked under the low wall shear stress area , if the hydraulic conductivity would be set as a function of wall shear stress.