Effects of the inlet conditions and blood models on accurate prediction of hemodynamics in the stented coronary arteries

Hemodynamics altered by stent implantation is well-known to be closely related to in-stent restenosis. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method has been used to investigate the hemodynamics in stented arteries in detail and help to analyze the performances of stents. In this study, blood models with Newtonian or non-Newtonian properties were numerically investigated for the hemodynamics at steady or pulsatile inlet conditions respectively employing CFD based on the finite volume method. The results showed that the blood model with non-Newtonian property decreased the area of low wall shear stress (WSS) compared with the blood model with Newtonian property and the magnitude of WSS varied with the magnitude and waveform of the inlet velocity. The study indicates that the inlet conditions and blood models are all important for accurately predicting the hemodynamics. This will be beneficial to estimate the performances of stents and also help clinicians to select the proper stents for the patients.