Fluid–structure interaction simulation of aortic blood flow

Abstract

The numerical tools to simulate blood flow in the cardiovascular system are constantly developing due to the great clinical interest and to scientific advances in mathematical models and computational power. The present work aims to address and validate new algorithms to efficiently predict the hemodynamics in large arteries. These algorithms rely on finite elements simulation of the fluid–structure interaction between blood flow and arterial wall deformation of a healthy aorta. Different sets of boundary conditions are devised and tested. The mean velocity and pressure time evolution is plotted on different sections of the aorta and the wall shear stress distribution is computed. The results are compared with those obtained with a rigid wall simulation. Pulse wave velocity is computed and compared with the values available from the literature. The flow boundary conditions used for the outlets are obtained using the solution of a one-dimensional model. The results of the simulations are in agreement with the physiological data in terms of wall shear stress, wall displacement, pressure waveforms and velocities.