At various locations in the arterial system, plaques, or small relatively isolated protuberances, can develop on the inner wall of the vessel and project into the lumen. A number of investigators have suggested that the development and growth of these protuberances is related to the flow in the vicinity of the protuberance. In this study, the conditions under which the flow separates from an isolated protuberance located in a cylindrical tube were investigated. The critical Reynolds number at which separation first takes place for a given protuberance was determined. A series of tests was performed for steady flow of a Newtonian fluid through a rigid tube in which protuberances of various sizes were inserted. The results of the tests show the effect of the protuberance height and shape on the separation characteristics. In general, the results indicate that separation takes place at relatively small values of the Reynolds number; values that commonly occur in the arterial system, so that this phenomenon may be important in the study of the “coupling” between blood flow and arterial lesions.
