Open Access
ARTICLE
Numerical Simulation of Fluid and Heat Transfer in a Biological Tissue Using an Immersed Boundary Method Mimicking the Exact Structure of the Microvascular Network
Yuanliang Tang1, 2, Lizhong Mu1, Ying He1, *
1 Key Laboratory of Ocean Energy Utilization and Energy Conservation of Ministry of Education, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, 116024, China.
2 National Engineering Research Center for Healthcare Devices, Guangdong Key Lab of Medical Electronic Instruments and Polymer Material Products, Guangdong Institute of Medical Instruments, Guangzhou, 510500, China.
* Corresponding Author: Ying He. Email: .
(This article belongs to the Special Issue: CFD Modeling and Multiphase Flows)
Fluid Dynamics & Materials Processing 2020, 16(2), 281-296. https://doi.org/10.32604/fdmp.2020.06760
Received 28 March 2019; Accepted 12 October 2019; Issue published 21 April 2020
Abstract
The aim of this study is to develop a model of fluid and heat transfer in a
biological tissue taking into account the exact structure of the related microvascular
network, and to analyze the influence of structural changes of such a network induced by
diabetes. A cubic region representing local skin tissue is selected as the computational
domain, which in turn includes two intravascular and extravascular sub-domains. To save
computational resources, the capillary network is reduced to a 1D pipeline model and
embedded into the extravascular region. On the basis of the immersed boundary method
(IBM) strategy, fluid and heat fluxes across a capillary wall are distributed to the
surrounding tissue nodes by a delta function. We consider both steady and periodic blood
pressure conditions at the entrances of the capillary network. Under steady blood pressure
conditions, both the interstitial fluid pressure and tissue temperature around the capillary
network are larger than those in other places. When the periodic blood pressure condition
is considered, tissue temperature tends to fluctuate with the same frequency of the
forcing, but the related waveform displays a smaller amplitude and a certain time (phase)
delay. When the connectivity of capillary network is diminished, the capacity of blood
redistribution through the capillary network becomes weaker and a subset of the vessel
branches lose blood flow, which further aggravates the amplitude attenuation and time
delay of the skin temperature fluctuation.
Keywords
Cite This Article
Tang, Y., Mu, L., He, Y. (2020). Numerical Simulation of Fluid and Heat Transfer in a Biological Tissue Using an Immersed Boundary Method Mimicking the Exact Structure of the Microvascular Network.
FDMP-Fluid Dynamics & Materials Processing, 16(2), 281–296. https://doi.org/10.32604/fdmp.2020.06760
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