NUMERICAL-MODEL AND EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF BLOOD-FLOW THROUGH A BIFURCATION - INTERACTION BETWEEN AN ARTERY AND A SMALL PROSTHESIS

The use of prosthetic vascular grafts as bypass to arteries of small d iameter (<5 mm) often is thwarted by occlusion after months of apparen tly normal function. This work presents a numeric simulation of the fl ow through a distal anastomosis. A finite element method has been appl ied, providing information on the velocity field, streamlines, wall sh ear stresses, and vorticity in the different geometries. The study ill ustrates the dependence of the flow pattern and wall shear stress dist ribution upon Reynolds number, and the results show high shear stresse s, approximately 3-5 times larger than normal, acting on the vessel wa ll at the branching point for the small diameter branch.