Pulsatile blood flow and gas exchange across a cylindrical fiber array.
The pulsatile blood flow and gas transport of oxygen and carbon dioxide through a cylindrical array of microfibers are numerically simulated. Blood is modeled as a homogeneous Casson fluid, and hemoglobin molecules in blood are assumed to be in local equilibrium with oxygen and carbon dioxide. It is shown that flow pulsatility enhances gas transport and the amount of gas exchange is sensitive to the blood flow field across the fibers. The steady Sherwood number dependence on Reynolds number was shown to have a linear relation consistent with experimental findings. For most cases, an enhancement in gas transport is accompanied with an increase in flow resistance. Maximum local shear stress is provided as a possible indicator of thrombosis, and the computed shear stress is shown to be below the threshold value for thrombosis formation for all cases evaluated.
Chan
Kit Yan
KY
Department of Biomedical Engineering, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA.
Fujioka
Hideki
H
Hirshl
Ronald B
RB
Bartlett
Robert H
RH
Grotberg
James B
JB
D001187:Artificial Organs; D001693:Biological Transport, Active / Q000502:physiology; D001783:Blood Flow Velocity / Q000502:physiology; D019295:Computational Biology / Q000379:methods; D003198:Computer Simulation; D006801:Humans; D008168:Lung / Q000098:blood supply* / Q000502:physiology*; D008955:Models, Cardiovascular; D011652:Pulmonary Circulation / Q000502:physiology; D011659:Pulmonary Gas Exchange / Q000502:physiology*; D011673:Pulsatile Flow / Q000502:physiology*; D015657:Respiratory Transport / Q000502:physiology