Endothelial shear stress from large-scale blood flow simulations

We discuss the optimal evaluation of endothelial shear stress for real-life case studies based on anatomic data acquisition. The fluid dynamic simulations require smoothing of the geometric dataset to avoid major artefacts in the flow patterns, especially in the proximity of bifurcations. A systematic series of simulations at different corrugation levels shows that, below a smoothing length of about 0.5 mm, the numerical data are insensitive to further smoothing. © 2011 The Royal Society.