Effect of elastic wall motion on oscillatory flow of micropolar fluid in an annular tube

Summary

Oscillatory flow of a micropolar fluid in an annular tube is investigated. The outer wall of the tube is taken to be elastic and the variation in the diameter of the elastic wall due to pulsatile nature of pressure gradient is assumed to be small. The wall motion is governed by a tube law. The nonlinear equations governing the fluid flow and the tube law are solved using perturbation analysis. The steady-streaming phenomenon due to the interaction of convected inertia with viscous effects is studied. The analysis, is carried out for zero mean flow rate. It presents the effects of the elastic nature of the wall combined with micropolar fluid parameters on the mean pressure gradient and wall shear stress for different catheter sizes and frequency parameters. It is found that the effect of micropolarity is of considerable importance for small steady-streaming Reynolds number. Also, it is observed that the relationship between mean pressure gradient and the flow rate depends on the amplitude of the diameter variation, flow rate waveforms and the phase difference between them.