Forced convection heat transfer within a moderately-stenosed, patient-specific carotid bifurcation

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to numerically model forced convection heat transfer within a patient-specific carotid bifurcation and to examine the relationship between the temperature and wall shear stress. Design/methodology/approach - The procedure employs a parallel, fully explicit (matrix free) characteristic based split scheme for the solution of incompressible Navier-Stokes equations. Findings - The arterial wall temperature, rather than the blood temperature dominates the regions of low wall shear stress and high oscillating shear stress. Additionally, negligible temperature gradient was detected proximal to the arterial wall in this locality. Originality/value - The presented results demonstrate a possible mechanism for cold air temperature to influence the atherosclerotic plaque region proximal to the stenosis. The proposed patient-specific heat transfer analysis also provides a starting point for the investigation of the influence of induced hypothermia on carotid plaque and its stability.