A finite element analysis of turbulent eccentric stenotic flows by large eddy simulation

Blood flows with stenosis may cause turbulence. In such a case, vessels may be damaged by the turbulent flow because the velocity gradient of turbulent flow is large near the wall. It is very important to predict turbulence accurately. Generally, the shape of the stenotic vessel is quite complicated. Finite element method (FEM) is adopted because it is able to easily handle the stenotic vessel with unstructured meshes. Also, based on FEM, large eddy simulation (LES) is implemented to accurately solve turbulent flows in a vessel. To verify the accuracy of the LES technique developed, it is applied to the turbulent flow in an eccentric stenosis flow considered by Varghese et al. [1]. The simulation results showed that laminar flow occurs at the inlet region, whereas turbulence flow occurs after stenosis region. The present results show a reasonably good agreement with the DNS results of Varghese et al. [1].