Micromagnetorotation effects in micropolar magnetohydrodynamic blood flow through stenosis

Abstract

This study presents a numerical investigation of a 3D micropolar magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) blood flow through stenosis, with and without the effects of micromagnetorotation (MMR). MMR refers to the magnetic torque caused by the misalignment of the magnetization of magnetic particles in the fluid with the magnetic field, which affects the internal rotation (microrotation) of these particles. Blood can be modeled as a micropolar fluid with magnetic particles due to the magnetization of erythrocytes. In this manner, this study analyzes important flow features, i.e., streamlines, vorticity, velocity, microrotation, wall shear stress, and pressure drop under varying stenosis, hematocrit levels, and magnetic fields, using two newly developed transient OpenFOAM solvers epotMicropolarFoam and epotMMRFoam. Results indicate that micropolar effects become more pronounced at severe stenosis due to the significant reduction in artery size, resulting also in higher wall shear stress and pressure drop. Furthermore, when MMR is disregarded, the magnetic field does not significantly alter blood flow, regardless of its intensity, due to the minimal impact of the Lorentz force on blood. Conversely, MMR substantially affects blood flow, particularly at higher hematocrit levels and severe stenoses, leading to reductions of up to 30% in velocity and vorticity and up to 99.9% in microrotation and higher wall shear stress and pressure drop. Simultaneously, any vortices or disturbances are dampened. These findings underscore the critical role of MMR (which was ignored so far) in altering flow behavior in stenosed arteries, suggesting that it should be considered in future MHD micropolar blood flow studies.