CFD Study on Effect of Branch Sizes in Human Coronary Arteries

Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) is one of the leading causes of death in developed countries. The link between Wall Shear Stress (WSS) and CAD development is well established, with studies indicating the accumulation of lesions in regions of low WSS, flow separation, and in the regions where there is departure from axially aligned unidirectional flow [5]. It has been well established that blood flow patterns are highly affected by branch flows, as bifurcations are one of the leading locations of plaque accumulation [5]. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is an important tool for quantifying hemodynamics.