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Peristaltic transport of rheological fluid: model for movement of food bolus through esophagus

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Abstract

Fluid mechanical peristaltic transport through esophagus is studied in the paper. A mathematical model has been developed to study the peristaltic transport of a rheological fluid for arbitrary wave shapes and tube lengths. The Ostwald-de Waele power law of a viscous fluid is considered here to depict the non-Newtonian behaviour of the fluid. The model is formulated and analyzed specifically to explore some important information concerning the movement of food bolus through esophagus. The analysis is carried out by using the lubrication theory. The study is particularly suitable for the cases where the Reynolds number is small. The esophagus is treated as a circular tube through which the transport of food bolus takes place by periodic contraction of the esophageal wall. Variation of different variables concerned with the transport phenomena such as pressure, flow velocities, particle trajectory, and reflux is investigated for a single wave as well as a train of periodic peristaltic waves. The locally variable pressure is seen to be highly sensitive to the flow index “n”. The study clearly shows that continuous fluid transport for Newtonian/rheological fluids by wave train propagation is more effective than widely spaced single wave propagation in the case of peristaltic movement of food bolus in the esophagus.

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Abbreviations

R, θ,Z :

cylindrical coordinates

a :

average radius of the food bolus

H :

displacement of the esophageal wall in the radial direction

n :

fluid index

k :

reciprocal of n

P :

fluid pressure

Q 1 :

volume flow rate

t :

time

δ :

wave number

U :

velocity component in the Z-direction

V :

velocity component in the R-direction

W :

velocity component in the θ-direction

V B :

volume of fluid within a single peristaltic wave (the bolus)

ΔP :

pressure difference between the ends of the esophagus

ɛ :

minimum vessel radius (during occlusion)

ρ :

fluid density

λ :

wave length of the travelling wave motion in the esophagus

μ :

viscosity of the fluid (food bolus)

ν :

kinematic viscosity of the fluid (food bolus)

ϕ :

wave amplitude

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Misra, J.C., Maiti, S. Peristaltic transport of rheological fluid: model for movement of food bolus through esophagus. Appl. Math. Mech.-Engl. Ed. 33, 315–332 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10483-012-1552-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10483-012-1552-7

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