[C. Caviness]

I am working on simulating blood flow through the carotid artery. I set the starting point as "inlet" and am putting a parabolic velocity profile as the initial conidition. When I analyze the data the values at the inlet are significantly lower than what I entered. I don't put any pressure or anything so the velcoity value at the inlet should be very close what I entered. Why is the inlet value so low? As I move down the model the values jump right back to normal. Everything is correct except this inlet velocity. I have heard that it is because the wall node values are averaged into the inlet and not the other places (because they are inside the wall). Is this an acceptable reason or should I set the inlet as something else to avoid this problem? I only want the average of the area in the inlet (not including the edge node values if that is what is causing the low value). If this is just a system conflict, I can deal with it because I can defend it. If it is my problem and I need to change something, I need to know how. Thanks for any help.