Flow visualization analysis of pulsatile flow in elastic straight tubes

Effects of wall compliance on the flow characteristics were studied by visualizing pulsatile flow in two straight elastic tubes having different compliance and in a rigid tube. The elastic tubes were made of segmented polyether polyurethane and their compliance was adjusted by varying the wall thickness. Their diameter changes were ±3.3 and ±4.9% for the pressure pulsation between 20 and 250 mm Hg. An acrylic pipe was used for the rigid model. An air-driven artificial heart was used to generate the pulsatile flow having the mean Reynolds number and frequency parameter of 740 and 11.4, respectively.

The flow was visualized by the hydrogen bubble method at every 5% of the pulsatile flow cycle. Velocity distributions along the tube diameter were determined from still images of time lines taken with a CCD camera. The ratio of the wall shear rate in the elastic tubes to that in the rigid tube at each phase correlated well with the radial velocity of tube wall, while it had no significant correlation with the instantaneous tube diameter. These results suggest that the wall compliance either increases or decreases the wall shear rate depending on the phasic relation between the flow and pressure waves. When studying the hemodynamic effects on vascular diseases by model experiments, it may be important to take wall elasticity into account.