  One-dimensional blood flow models take the general form of nonlinear
hyperbolic systems but differ greatly in their formulation. One class of models
considers the physically conserved quantities of mass and momentum, while
another class describes mass and velocity. Further, the averaging process
employed in the model derivation requires the specification of the axial
velocity profile; this choice differentiates models within each class.
Discrepancies among differing models have yet to be investigated. In this
paper, we systematically compare several reduced models of blood flow for
physiologically relevant vessel parameters, network topology, and boundary
data. The models are discretized by a class of Runge-Kutta discontinuous
Galerkin methods.
