Numerical simulations of the discontinuous progression of cerebral aneurysms based on fluid-structure interactions study

Abstract

Investigations into the characteristics of hemodynamics will provide a better understanding of the pathology of cerebral aneurysms for clinicians. In this work, a steady state discontinuous-growth model of the cerebral aneurysms was proposed. With the assumption of the fluid-structure interaction between the wall of blood vessel and blood, a fluid-structure coupling numerical simulation for this model was built using software ANSYS and CFX. The simulation results showed that as the aneurysm volume increased, a blood flow vortex came forth, the vortex region became asymptotically larger, and eddy density became gradually stronger in it. After the emergence of the vortex region, the blood flow in the vicinity of the downstream in the aneurysms volume turned into bifurcated flow, and the location of the flow bifurcated point was shifted with the aneurysm volume growing while directions of the shear stress applied to two sides of the bifurcated point were opposite. The Von Mises stress distribution along the wall of aneurysm volume decreased in the prior period and increased gradually in the later period. The maximum stress was in the neck of the volume and the minimum was on the distal end in the whole process of growth. It was shown that as the aneurysm increased the maximum deformation location of the aneurysm, vertical to the streamline, was transferred from the distal end of the aneurysm to its neck, then back to its distal end of the aneurysm again.