Role of arterial blood flow in atherosclerosis

The pathological complications of atherosclerosis, namely heart attacks and strokes, remain the leading cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide. This chapter provides general review of the role of arterial fluid mechanics in the development of atherosclerosis. It presents new results on a specific question in biofluid mechanics, namely how fluid dynamic interactions between two adjacent arterial branches affect the structure of the flow field. Atherosclerosis develops exclusively in medium and large arteries with particular prevalence in the coronary arteries, the carotid arteries, the aorta and parts of the cerebral arterial network. The primary reason for implicating arterial fluid mechanics in the development of atherosclerosis is that the disease in its early stages is highly focal in nature. The chapter discusses the flow patterns at two successive T-junctions by performing a series of computational simulations on a rigid model of generic abdominal aorta with model celiac and superior mesenteric arteries.