A matrix-form GSM–CFD solver for incompressible fluids and its application to hemodynamics

A GSM–CFD solver for incompressible flows is developed based on the gradient smoothing method (GSM). A matrix-form algorithm and corresponding data structure for GSM are devised to efficiently approximate the spatial gradients of field variables using the gradient smoothing operation. The calculated gradient values on various test fields show that the proposed GSM is capable of exactly reproducing linear field and of second order accuracy on all kinds of meshes. It is found that the GSM is much more robust to mesh deformation and therefore more suitable for problems with complicated geometries. Integrated with the artificial compressibility approach, the GSM is extended to solve the incompressible flows. As an example, the flow simulation of carotid bifurcation is carried out to show the effectiveness of the proposed GSM–CFD solver. The blood is modeled as incompressible Newtonian fluid and the vessel is treated as rigid wall in this paper.