Analysis of pulsatile shear-thinning flows in rectangular channels

In this paper, we present an in-depth analysis of pulsatile shear-thinning flows in twodimensional channels. The characteristic viscosity was determined based on steady-state analysis of non-Newtonian flows and was used to nondimensionalize the flow system by introducing the non-Newtonian Womersley number. Numerical analyses on various Carreau fluids revealed the existence of master curves related to the amplitude and phase lag of the flows, where the shape of the master curve is determined by the degree of shear thinning. Such master curves imply that the competition between viscous and pulsatile time scales can be described appropriately by using the non-Newtonian Womersley number proposed in this paper. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that the flow dynamics can be predicted accurately using precomputed master curves, presenting a method for predicting shear-thinning pulsatile flow dynamics without explicit transient computations.

Automated summary

This paper presents an in-depth analysis of pulsatile shear-thinning flows in two-dimensional channels by introducing the non-Newtonian Womersley number. It is found that the shape of the master curve is determined by the shear thinning degree, and the competition between viscous and pulsatile time scales can be appropriately described by this number.