Investigation of the Effect of Diffusion Coefficient on Low Density Lipoprotein Particles Mass Transport within a Carotid Artery with Multilayer Wall

The atherosclerosis disease is the most prevalent illness that occurs in large or medium size arteries. The most important consequence of this disease is creation of arterial platelets in places where in addition to artery damages; the density of materials such as low density lipoprotein (LDL) is being increased. The produced platelets not only block appropriate blood delivery to downstream fibers but also in advanced stages, rubbing or tearing platelet could bring about clot and eventually heart or brain stroke. In this research, in order to review the procedure of LDLs accumulation within lumens and arterial wall, numerical simulation of LDL particles mass transport by using several layer model and diffusion coefficient depending on shear rate are used. Arteries’ walls are assumed to be porous and rigid. In this study, Navier–Stokes equations, mass transport, and Darsi have been solved by numerical methods with regarding to non-Newtonian behavior of blood in lumens and different layers of vessel’s wall. In this article, the impacts of diffusion coefficient being constant or variable, impact of non-Newtonian behavior of blood, impact of non-Newtonian behavior of plasma and impact of blood pressure on the amount of LDL accumulation in lumen and layers of carotid artery are reviewed. The results indicate that diffusion coefficient variation in arterial lumen and non-Newtonian behavior of plasma within the arterial wall could affect significantly on LDL accumulation. In addition, increasing blood pressure not only increases LDL accumulation on interface of blood and arterial wall but also increases the accumulation within arterial wall layers and consequently the artery is more susceptible to atherosclerosis development.