Nonlinear Spectral Element Model for the Blood Flow in Human Arteries.

It has been well-known that the cardiovascular diseases are closely related to the blood flow characteristics such as blood pressure and blood flow rate in a blood vessel. Thus it is very important to predict such blood flow characteristics in an accurate and efficient way. To that end, this paper develops a nonlinear one-dimensional (1D) viscoelastic spectral element model for the blood flow in an artery with slowly varying cross-section by using the variational approach. In this study, the mechanical behavior of the artery wall is represented by the standard solid viscoelastic model and the nonlinear spectral element model is formulated by using the frequency-dependent dynamic shape functions which are derived from the free wave solutions to the governing differential equations in frequency-domain. A direct iterative method is used in conjunction with the alternating frequency-time method to obtain either frequency-domain or time-domain solutions from the nonlinear spectral element model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]