COMPARISON BETWEEN THE RESULTS OF THE 2-DIMENSIONAL AND 3-DIMENSIONALNUMERICAL SIMULATIONS IN AN AORTIC BIFURCATION MODEL

Bifurcations are vascular singularities of interest because they are t he privileged sites of atherosclerosis deposits, particularly the site s corresponding to wall shear stress extrema. The purpose of this pape r is to compare the two- and three-dimensional characteristics of the velocity fields, the shear stress distributions and the secondary flow s in a symmetrical aortic bifurcation. The branching angle is equal to 60-degrees and the branch-to-trunk area ratio to 0.8. The numerical s imulations are performed using the FIDAP programme. Although restricti ve by the hypotheses of steady flow and rigid channel, with rectangula r cross-sections, this study shows the importance of the three-dimensi onal effects in particular as far as concerned the wall shear stress b ehaviours.