Numerical simulation of mass transfer to micropolar fluid flow past a stenosed artery

A mathematical model of unsteady non‐Newtonian blood flow together with the mass transfer through constricted arteries has been developed. The mass transport refers to the movement of atherogenic molecules, i.e. blood‐borne components, such as low‐density lipoproteins from flowing blood into the arterial walls or vice versa. The flowing blood is represented as the suspension of all erythrocytes assumed to be Eringen's micropolar fluid and the arterial wall is considered to be rigid having cosine‐shaped stenosis in its lumen. The mass transfer to blood is controlled by the convection–diffusion equation. The governing equations of motion accompanied by the appropriate choice of the boundary conditions are solved numerically by Marker and Cell method and the results obtained are checked for numerical stability with the desired degree of accuracy. The quantitative analysis carried out finally includes the respective profiles of the flow‐field and the mass concentration along with their distributions over the entire arterial segment as well. The key factors, such as the wall shear stress and Sherwood number, are also examined for further quantitative insight into the flow and the mass transport phenomena through arterial stenosis. The present results show consistency with several existing results in the literature which substantiate sufficiently to validate the applicability of the model under consideration. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.