  We study the impact of using fluid-structure interactions (FSI) to simulate
blood flow in a large stenosed artery. We compare typical flow configurations
using Navier-Stokes in a rigid geometry setting to a fully coupled FSI model.
The relevance of vascular elasticity is investigated with respect to several
questions of clinical importance. Namely, we study the effect of using FSI on
the wall shear stress distribution, on the Fractional Flow Reserve and on the
damping effect of a stenosis on the pressure amplitude during the pulsatory
cycle. The coupled problem is described in a monolithic variational formulation
based on Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE) coordinates. For comparison, we
perform pure Navier-Stokes simulations on a prestressed geometry to give a good
matching of both configurations. A series of numerical simulations that cover
important hemodynamical factors are presented and discussed.
