A comparative fluid-structure interaction study of stenosed and normal common carotid artery

Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) is one of the growing challenges in recent times, wherein both fluid and structural solution domains are coupled using CFD and FEM methods respectively. Results from both the analysis are exchanged at interface junction in a synchronized manner to obtain an FSI solution. This study is helpful in observing the behavior of blood flow through arteries and to study the mechanisms of diseases like Atherosclerosis, Hypertension, Aneurysms etc. The blood flow distends the elastic artery due the flow-induced pressure and deformed artery in turn affects the flow behavior. The prime concern is in this study is to compare the change in flow behavior and structural displacement of both occluded and normal carotid artery. The clinical data is obtained from ultrasound technique and the subject is having an eccentric occlusion of 66% in left common carotid and right common carotid shows normal behavior. Initially, the CFD model is analyzed considering the realistic physiological boundary conditions. Then FSI model is analyzed considering the same boundary conditions as observed for that of CFD model. The modeling and analysis is carried out using ANSYS, commercially available Finite Element software. An ANSYS Parametric Design Language (APDL) has been written to carry out the transient analysis and the parameters like arterial deformation, flow velocity and wall shear stress are considered. The results obtained agree well with the clinical observations and theoretical values.