Lattice Boltzmann modelling of a regularised Kuang-Luo fluid in a carotid artery

In this work, a novel lattice Boltzmann (LB) framework for the simulation of non-Newtonian fluids was applied to study the flow of blood in a carotid artery. For this, the Kuang-Luo (KL) rheological model was used to represent the blood as a homogeneous continuum. This captured the primary non-Newtonian characteristics of blood, namely visco- and pseudo-plasticity. The study makes two major contributions to the field. Firstly, it addresses the numerical complexities associated with the yield stress in the KL model through regularisation of the constitutive equation. Secondly, the developed model was applied to simulate transient blood flow in a carotid artery geometry. Two oscillatory pressure profiles are applied to examine the importance of inflow conditions on wall shear stress. The preliminary, high-fidelity analysis of this geometry provided insight into flow characteristics that will be of interest to future investigations of clinical problems.