A Numerical Investigation of Peristaltic Waves in Circular Tubes

Peristaltic pumping is a process of fluid transport arising from the progressive waves, which travel along the walls of a flexible channel. It is a primary physiological transport mechanism that is inherent in many tubular organs of the human body such as the ureter, the gastro-intestinal tract, the urethra, and so on. Many studies exist in literature with the aim of understanding the characteristics of peristaltic flow under the assumption of low Reynolds number and infinitely long wavelength in a two-dimensional channel. However, peristaltic pumping is also the mechanism used in other industrial applications such as the blood pump for which the Reynolds number has a moderately high value. As studies concerning moderate to high Reynolds number flow in the circular tube are rare in literature, in the present study, the peristaltic flow of an incompressible fluid is numerically simulated using the finite volume method for solving the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations in primitive variable formulation by means of an infinite train of sinusoidal waves traveling along the wall of an axi-symmetric tube. The computational model presented in this work covers a wider range of Reynolds number (0.01-100), wave amplitude (0-0.8), and wavelength (0.01-0.4) than the those attempted in previous studies reported in literature and some new results pertaining to the distribution of velocity, pressure, wall shear stress for different peristaltic flow conditions characterizing flow at moderately higher Reynolds number have been obtained. The effect of the wave amplitude, wavelength, and Reynolds number on the "flow trapping" mechanism induced by peristalsis has also been investigated here for higher ranges of values of the parameters characterizing peristalsis.