Study on Flow and Heat Transfer Characteristics in the Cerebral Circle of Willis

doi:10.7523/j.ucas.2026.023

Abstract

Abstract: In recent years, the incidence of cerebrovascular diseases continues to rise, and the brain has attracted much attention due to its special intracranial structure and high sensitivity to temperature. Compared with other organs, the quantitative data of human microvascular brain network is still scarce. The Willis circle is the core vascular structure of the brain. The existing research has not comprehensively analyzed the flow and heat transfer behavior in the geometric structure of the Willis circle closed loop. Its accurate modeling is of great significance for understanding the structure and function of the cerebrovascular system and exploring the related brain disease mechanism. In this paper, three-dimensional modeling based on computed tomography (CT) images of the human brain is used to simulate the blood flow in the Willis ring and perform hemodynamic analysis. The results show that the asymmetric ring structure of the Willis ring has the largest increase of 5.9% and 8.4%, respectively, compared with the asymmetric non-ring structure and the symmetric ring structure. When the boundary conditions change, the asymmetric ring structure of the Willis ring has the smallest amount of change, which makes the Willis ring have stronger stability and stronger heat transfer capacity. The numerical simulation of blood flow in the circle of Willis can provide reference for pathogenesis and clinical diagnosis.

Key words: circle of willis, convective heat transfer, numerical simulation, average Nusselt number

CLC Number:

TK124

SUN Haoshuai, LIU Jie. Study on Flow and Heat Transfer Characteristics in the Cerebral Circle of Willis[J]. Journal of University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.7523/j.ucas.2026.023.

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