An experimental study of blood flow in a model of coronary artery with single and double stenoses

Cardiovascular diseases are one of the major causes of world mortality. It has been well established that there are direct relationships between hemodynamic parameters and cardiovascular disorders. Effects of severity of stenosis on pressure drop in a model of coronary artery were experimentally studied. A pulsatile pump was employed to generate flow rate wave similar to that of a typical human coronary artery. An elastic tube as a model of coronary artery with similar mechanical and geometrical properties was used. Models with single and double stenoses were developed and pressure drop pulses were measured utilizing pressure transducers and data acquisition system, and the mean values were calculated. The results indicated that in single stenosis, while severity increases, the pressure drop increases exponentially, so there is a critical severity which will cause the pressure to drop dramatically. In double stenosis, in addition to the critical severity which reported on single stenosis, there is another critical severity which will occur when two severities are the same. Comparing single and double stenosis, it can be seen a difference which increases almost linear with the severity.