NEW METHOD FOR IMPROVED CALCULATIONS OF UNSTEADY COMPLEX FLOWS IN LARGE ARTERIES

摘要

Using an improved computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method developed for highly unsteady three-dimensional flows,numerical simulations for oscillating flow cycles and detailed unsteady simulations of the flow and forces on the aortic vessels at the iliac bifurcation,for both healthy and diseased patients,are analyzed.Improvements in computational efficiency and acceleration in convergence are achieved by calculating both an unsteady pressure gradient which is due to fluid acceleration and a good global pressure field correction based on mass flow for the pressure Poisson equation.Applications of the enhanced method to oscillatory flow in curved pipes yield an order of magnitude increase in speed and efficiency,thus allowing the study of more complex flow problems such as flow through the mammalian abdominal aorta at the iliac arteries bifurcation.To analyze the large forces which can exist on stent graft of patients with abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) disease,a complete derivation of the force equations is presented.The accelerated numerical algorithm and the force equations derived are used to calculate flow and forces for two individuals whose geometry is obtained from CT data and whose respective blood pressure measurements are obtained experimentally.Although the use of endovascular stent grafts in diseased patients can alter vessel geometries,the physical characteristics of stents are still very different when compared to native blood vessels of healthy subjects.The geometry for the AAA stent graph patient studied in this investigation induced flows that resulted in large forces that are primarily caused by the blood pressure.These forces are also directly related to the flow cross-sectional area and the angle of the iliac arteries relative to the main descending aorta.Furthermore,the fluid flow is significantly disturbed in the diseased patient with large flow recirculation and stagnant regions which are not present for healthy subjects.