TiO₂-Ag/blood hybrid nanofluid flow through an artery with applications of drug delivery and blood circulation in the respiratory system

Abstract

Purpose

As transferring biological fluid through an artery is nowadays a pivotal subject, the purpose of this paper is to study the mathematical model of hybrid nanofluid flow comprising pure blood as base fluid and TiO₂ and Ag as nanoparticles through the porous channel, which can be an applicable model for drug delivery.

Design/methodology/approach

Both walls of the channel have different permeability, which enables the fluid to enter and exit, and variable height, which dilates and squeezes at the uniform rate. By taking advantage of the similarity transformation technique, governing equations have been converted into a system of the non-linear ordinary differential equation. This problem is solved numerically by utilizing BVP4C built-in function in MATLAB software to explore the impacts of pertinent parameters.

Findings

The plots of velocity and temperature profile, normal pressure distribution and wall shear stress, as well as Nusselt number for involved parameters, are presented and the logic and physical reasons beyond them are highlighted. It has been observed that the asymmetry of the channel, caused by different permeability at walls, affects the nature of flow significantly.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no one has ever attempted to study the flow through a deformable porous channel with blood as a base fluid and as hybrid nanoparticles to describe medical phenomena and treatment applications. Indeed, the achievements of this paper are purely original and the numerical results were never published by any researcher.

Citation

Shojaie Chahregh, H. and Dinarvand, S. (2020), "TiO₂-Ag/blood hybrid nanofluid flow through an artery with applications of drug delivery and blood circulation in the respiratory system", International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, Vol. 30 No. 11, pp. 4775-4796. https://doi.org/10.1108/HFF-10-2019-0732