Mesh generation for biological flows
 

Hello,

I'm using a finite element code to simulate blood flow in arteries. I need to generate some new tetrahedral meshes and I'm not sure about how to define the size of the cells adjacent to the walls.
Looking at the case of a flat plate, the boundary layer thickness ~ 5x/sqrt(Re_x). The blood flow in an artery is internal flow though, and if the artery is long enough, the boundary layer thickness far from the inlet will eventually become larger than the artery radius. I'm a bit puzzled regarding what should be the reasoning for the mesh refinement near the wall in this case. My goal is an accurate wall shear stress calculation.
I would appreciate any opinions and references to papers, especially papers specific to hemodynamics.
Thank you very much.

Best regards,

Martin Vymazal

There is a difference between the flat plate case and the blood flow in the arteries. In the flat plate case, there is an uniform freestream of fluid entering your domain and the boundary layer starts to develop. This is not the case with the blood flow in arteries. I would suggest you to look for recent papers in annual review of fluid mechanics for a survey of the hemodynamics CFD studies.