When examining the wall sheer stress plots in Figures 6-10, two different conclusions can be drawn.

The
first is demonstrated by varying inlet velocity in any single percent occluded vessel and the second by
looking at the same inlet velocity across each of the four levels of stenosis.
In any single stenosis, an inlet velocity of 10, 30, and 50 cm/s yields increasing levels of wall
sheer stress throughout the entire length of the vessel. While this is to be expected from the
comparison of a mesh with no stenosis (Figure 6) to the meshes containing stenosis, a much more
noteworthy observation is in the ability of the flow to become fully developed. For each mesh with a
stenosis, prior to the stenosis the flow begins to asymptote at a low wall sheer stress as it becomes
developed. Upon hitting the stenosis, the wall sheer stress at each inlet velocity spikes and strays away
from developed flow with 50 cm/s spiking the highest and the 10 cm/s, the lowest. It is speculated that
the reason for this is that the 10cm/s flow is closer to being fully developed and therefore maintains a
lower wall sheer stress even when experiencing an occlusion while for fluids with a high inlet velocity,
the stenosis has a large effect and therefore magnifies the resultant sheer stress. Following the stenosis,
the 50 cm/s velocity flow spiked higher and more frequently than the 10 cm/s and 30 cm/s. This also
makes sense because once the flow hits and passes the stenosis, the higher velocity flow will become
more turbulent than the lower velocity flows thereby creating a higher wall shear stress.
Examination and comparison of each of the three velocities to their counterparts in each of the
three meshes in Figures 7-10 yields more interesting results. For each of the velocities, a mesh with a
larger stenosis created a larger wall sheer stress than one with a smaller occlusion, for the entire length
of the tube leading up to the stenosis. It is speculated that this higher wall shear stress is caused by the
increased resistance that higher percentage occlusions create. Upon reaching the stenosis, each velocity
generates a higher wall shear stress when experiencing a higher percent occlusion. This can be
accounted for by the fact that the fluid is maintaining a constant flow rate through the given region
despite the smaller lumen associated with the larger stenosis meshes. It can also be observed that in
each of the meshes, following the stenosis the wall sheer stress increases and peaks more often than in
higher percentage occlusions than in lower ones. This is because a larger stenosis creates a large
pressure differential between the upstream and downstream flows and therefore causes spikes in the
wall shear stress and the flow attempts to become developed.
Overall, it can be said that the two conclusions that can be drawn from the analysis of the wall
sheer stress plots (Figures 6-10) are that wall sheer stress increases with increasing velocity and also
increases with an increasingly stenosed vessel. These results can be verified by looking to Figure 6 for
comparison. Here it is shown that given a vessel with no stenosis, the working fluid will asymptote at a
low level of wall sheer stress and will become more developed. Additionally, it is worth taking note of
the fact that Figure 6, the mesh with no stenosis, shows that a higher inlet velocity yields a higher wall
sheer stress. This mesh therefore served as a control in this study.