Abstract: The
localised nature of atherosclerosis has led to the hypothesis that mechanical
factors are involved in its development. In this study, blood is modelled as an
incompressible fluid of non-uniform viscosity flowing steadily in a large artery
such as aorta. On the assumption that the blood vessel is rigid with slowly
varying width and small aspect ratio the
problem is tackled by asymptotic approximation. Our results reveal that an
increase in the blood viscosity may lead to a decrease in the flow velocity as
well as early occurrence of separation or stagnation zone in the blood vessel. A
crucial point of the analysis is the dependence of the flow variables on the
blood viscosity variation parameter bin a completely arbitrary manner. The primary
conjecture of the study is the intimacy of the atherosclerosis development and
the parameter b.
