Honors Program

University Honors, Honors in Mathematics

Date of Award

5-2013

Thesis Professor(s)

Anahita Ayasoufi

Thesis Professor Department

Mathematics and Statistics

Thesis Reader(s)

Michele Joyner, Mallika Dhar

Abstract

In the United States, cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death for both men and women. Heart attacks and strokes can happen because of atherosclerosis, or plaque build-up inside arteries, which obstruct blood flow to the heart and brain. One common site of atherosclerosis is the carotid artery bifurcation. This study looks at how the angle between the branching arteries of the bifurcation affects the potential for atherosclerosis by running flow simulations through virtual models of the bifurcation. The higher the wall shear stress, turbulence intensity, and turbulence kinetic energy at the bifurcation, the lower the chance of atherosclerosis. There is an optimal angle at which this occurs.

Document Type

Honors Thesis - Withheld

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

Copyright

Copyright by the authors.

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