  Numerical simulations of pulsatile blood flow in an aortic coarctation
require the use of turbulence modeling. This paper considers three models from
the class of large eddy simulation (LES) models (Smagorinsky, Vreman,
$\boldsymbol{\sigma}$-model) and one model from the class of variational
multiscale models (residual-based) within a finite element framework. The
influence of these models on the estimation of clinically relevant biomarkers
used to assess the degree of severity of the pathological condition (pressure
difference, secondary flow degree, normalized flow displacement, wall shear
stress) is investigated in detail. The simulations show that most methods are
consistent in terms of severity indicators such as pressure difference and
stenotic velocity. The numerical results indicate that second order velocity
elements outperform first order elements in terms of accuracy. Moreover, using
second order velocity finite elements, different turbulence models might lead
to considerably different results concerning other clinically relevant
quantities such as wall shear stresses. These differences may be attributed to
differences in numerical dissipation introduced by the turbulence models.
