Estimation of turbulent shear stress in free jets: application to valvular regurgitation.

In an attempt to better assess the severity of valvular regurgitation, an in-vitro experiment has been conducted to estimate turbulent shear stress levels within free jets issuing from different orifice shapes and sizes by means of hot-wire anemometry. On the basis of the measured mean velocities and the jet profiles, the distributions of the normalized kinematic turbulent shear stress (uv/Um2) were estimated for different jets by using an equation available for self-preserving circular jet. The results indicate that the equation can estimate the distributions of uv/Um2 independent of the orifice shape and Reynolds number of the jet. For the range of Reynolds numbers considered, the estimation of maximum turbulent shear stress inferred from these distributions suggests that the critical shear stress level of approximately 200 N/m2, corresponding to destruction of blood cells, is exceeded for typical blood flow velocity of 5 m/s at the valvular lesion.