Measured wall shear stress distribution pattern upstream and downstream of a unilateral stenosis by an electrochemical method

Abstract

An electrochemical surface shear stress measurement was applied to a model of unilateral arterial stenosis. The unilateral stenosis model was made up of a removable stenosis plug, in an electrochemical shear stress measurement test section with 100 cathodes. Three dimensional wall shear stress distribution was measured under steady flow field. At a relatively low Reynolds number, Re=270, there was a characteristic high and low wall shear distribution pattern downstream of the unilateral stenosis. There were also remarkable high shear stress areas on the opposite wall up- and downstream, and both side walls of the stenosis upstream. It was clearly shown that detailed three dimensional structure of the flow field must be studied in order to correlate it to pathological findings.