Geometrical sensitivity in 3D arterial blood flow studies

摘要

Numerical and experimental studies of blood flow patterns in large arteries are important tools to examine the potential link between local hemodynamics and the development and progression of arterial diseases. The current trend in bothcomputational and experimental hemodynamic studies is to precisely replicate actual three-dimensional arterial geometries rather than studying simplified models [1-3]. While actual geometries are better approximations to the true physiological situation,fundamental questions regarding the necessity of these models, and our ability to precisely duplicate true anatomy in an vitro model, remain unanswered. The purpose of this paper is to determine how sensitive wall shear stress (wss) patterns (or otherhemodynamic factors) are to specific local geometry, and whether a realistic flow model yields substantially different information than an idealized geometry. In order to answer these questions, we have carried out blood flow simulations in a single truearterial geometry, as well as several closely related but simpler geometries.