Figure 1
Schematic illustration of the methodology and approach used in the present work. Space–time velocity fields of physiologic blood flow were obtained from (a) exact solution of the Navier–Stokes equation as described by Womersley flow model with physiologically realistic boundary conditions from HaeMod database and (b) in vivo Doppler ultrasound measurements of healthy volunteers. Physiologic blood flow was tested for three characteristics of turbulence that are (c) sensitive dependence on initial conditions, (d) global instability and (e) turbulent kinetic energy cascade. Three methods were used to test such characteristics namely Lyapunov exponents test, hydrodynamic stability analysis and calculation of kinetic energy cascade in space and frequency domains.
