@Article{fdmp.2020.06760,
AUTHOR = {Yuanliang Tang, Lizhong Mu, Ying He},
TITLE = {Numerical Simulation of Fluid and Heat Transfer in a Biological Tissue Using an Immersed Boundary Method Mimicking the Exact Structure of the Microvascular Network},
JOURNAL = {Fluid Dynamics \& Materials Processing},
VOLUME = {16},
YEAR = {2020},
NUMBER = {2},
PAGES = {281--296},
URL = {http://www.techscience.com/fdmp/v16n2/38662},
ISSN = {1555-2578},
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.},
DOI = {10.32604/fdmp.2020.06760}
}