• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.437-449
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• 2002

Coronary arteries are subjected to very different flow conditions compared to other arteries in systemic blood circulation. We Performed a computational fluid dynamic research to investigate influence of such flow conditions in coronary arteries on development and progress of atherosclerosis in the same. The results showed big differences in the flow field of the coronary artery compared to the abdominal and femoral arteries. The coronary artery showed higher wall shear stresses due to the small vessel diameter. On the other hand, it showed only one vortex distal to the stenosis throat during a whole pulse cycle. However. several vortices were observed in the abdominal and femoral arteries in both proximal and distal sides of the stenosis throat The wall shear stresses and extent of recirculation area were increased with impedance phase angle increasing toward more negative values. Therefore, cardiac contraction and the negative impedance phase angle as large as -110。 may induce a flow field that accelerates atherosclerosis.