Numerical Investigation of Non-Newtonian Blood Effect on Acoustic Streaming

Acoustic streaming, as an important phenomenon, is used in a wide variety of applications such as drug delivery and the removal of plaque in the vein surfaces. The purpose of the current paper is to investigate the effect of blood, as a non-Newtonian fluid, on acoustic streaming. The governing non-linear differential equations, mass, momentum, and state equations for non-stationary fluid using second-order perturbation theory, are coupled and solved. An in house computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code based on the finite element method is utilized. Results show that viscosity is highly dependent on shear stresses, about 60%. In addition viscosity affects the acoustic streaming velocity field.