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Abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is a serious dilated vascular disease. The risk factors of aneurysm rupture and postoperative blood pressure are the major clinical concerns. The purpose of this work is to analyze the hemodynamic difference between preoperative and postoperative AAA using patient-specific boundary conditions and explore the rupture risk of AAA with different torsion and to simulate the blood flow of different degrees of hypertension. A three-element Windkessel model is utilized as the outlet boundary condition. 20-sim software and self-developed user-defined functions are used to calibrate the parameters. To analyze the influence of aortic tortuosity on hemodynamics, five AAA geometries with different torsion degrees are modified and obtained. We also grade the hypertension and explore the effect of hypertension after operation. The analysis results are consistent with the patient-specific situation. The results show that stent implantation for aneurysms reduces the pressure at the lesion site and increase the speed and wall shear stress. Vessels with high torsion have lower time-averaged wall shear stress (TAWSS), higher oscillatory shear stress index (OSI) and relative retention time, and more disordered blood flow. After stent implantation, with the increase in blood pressure, TAWSS and OSI continue to increase, and the blood flow speed is also faster. AAA with high torsion is more likely to rupture. In clinical practice, attention should be paid to the degree of torsion of the lesion site. Furthermore, blood pressure should be monitored and controlled in time to prevent postoperative complications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blood is a sophisticated biological fluid with components like erythrocytes that give it non-Newtonian behavior. Hemodynamic factors such as velocity magnitude, pressure, and wall shear stress descriptors are the most important factors in the development of atherosclerosis. The wall shear stress descriptors are regulated not only by flow geometry but also by blood rheological properties. In the current study, we carried out a numerical analysis of the non-Newtonian pulsatile blood flow while taking into account a patient-specific geometry and transient boundary conditions. Non-Newtonian blood flow is modeled using the four non-Newtonian models: the power-law model, the Carreau model, the Casson model, and the Quemada model, and compared with the Newtonian model. Streamline analysis vividly illustrates velocity patterns, revealing the presence of recirculation zones near sinus regions. The study suggests the significance of selecting appropriate viscosity models for accurate assessments, particularly in regions with low time-average wall shear stress values, such as those associated with atherosclerotic plaques. The differences in the time-averaged wall shear stress between the four non-Newtonian models were found to be the highest in the Quemada model. The study concluded that the non-Newtonian model is required when the focus is on the low-time-averaged wall shear stress area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a microfluidic cell culture platform for studying the responses of Endothelial Cells (ECs) under pulsatile flow conditions of blood plasma. Through numerical investigations, we explore the dynamic behaviors of the Endothelial Cell Monolayer under both physiological and extreme conditions, including the formation of recirculation zones. Furthermore, we conduct a quantitative analysis of the Wall Shear Stress (WSS) magnitude on the EC surface and evaluate the Oscillatory Shear Index (OSI) to gain insights into the extent of WSS reversal within a single cycle across different spatial locations. Our findings reveal that the ECs deform in the direction of the flow, periodically returning to their initial position, with slight vertical deformation in the nanometer scale. In contrast to our previous observations for startup rheometry, cell membrane thinning is found to be more prominent at the lateral points of the cell protrusion, where fluid detachment from the cell surface initiates, rather than at the top. We further note that negative shear stresses emerge within the cytoplasm. Moreover, the shear stresses within the nucleus remain consistent for both rheometric protocols, while the normal stresses are slightly lower during pulsatile experiments. Finally, the model provides insight into the actual phenomena that arise in vivo as well as the expected behaviors in the vicinity of the endothelium of a vessel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blood is a non-Newtonian suspension of red and white cells, platelets, fibrinogen, and cholesterols in Newtonian plasma. To assess its non-Newtonian behaviors, this work considers a newly proposed blood test, unidirectional large-amplitude oscillatory shear flow (udLAOS). In the laboratory, we generate this experiment by superposing LAOS onto steady shear flow in such a way that the shear rate never changes sign. It is thus intended to best represent the unidirectional pulsatile flow in veins and arteries. To model human blood, we consider the simplest model that can predict infinite-shear viscosity, the corotational Jeffreys fluid. We arrive at an exact analytical expression for the shear stress response of this model fluid. We discover fractional harmonics comprising the transient part of the shear stress response and both integer and fractional harmonics, the alternant part. By fractional, we mean that these occur at frequencies other than integer multiples of the superposed oscillation frequency. We generalize the corotational Jeffreys fluid to multimode to best represent three blood samples from three healthy but different donors. To further improve our model predictions, we consider the multimode Oldroyd 8-constant framework, which contains the corotational Jeffreys fluid as a special case. In other words, by advancing from the multimode corotational Jeffreys fluid to the multimode Oldroyd 8-constant framework, five more model parameters are added, yielding better predictions. We find that the multimode corotational Jeffreys fluid adequately describes the steady shear viscosity functions measured for three different healthy donors. We further find that adding two more specific nonlinear constants to the multimode corotational Jeffreys fluid also adequately describes the behaviors of these same bloods in udLAOS. This new Oldroyd 5-constant model may find usefulness in monitoring health through udLAOS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]