Résumé
PURPOSE: The objective of the present study is to investigate the steady and pulsatile flow phenomena of the blood substitute fluids in the circular and bifurcated vessels numerically and experimentally. METHODS: The particle image velocimetry (PIV) is adopted to visualize the flow fields in the circular and bifurcated vessels. In order to analyse the complex flow phenomena of the blood substitute fluids in the bifurcated vessel, the constitutive equations which are suitable to describe the rheological properties of the non-Newtonian fluids are determined and the steady and unsteady momentum equations are solved by the finite volume prediction. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Velocity vectors of the steady flow in the bifurcated tube obtained by the PIV system are in good agreement with those obtained by the numerical analysis. The experimental and numerical results show the recirculation zone in the outer wall distal to bifurcation.