Simulating cardiovascular disease - the role of Computational Fluid Dynamics

Cardiovascular diseases are the number one cause of death world-wide as calculated by the World Health Organization. The role of fluid dynamic forces on the health of the vascular system is of significant interest for a wide range of these diseases. For example, the ability of a platelet to adhere to a surface is directly related to the history of fluid forces which affect it, having particular implications for the progression of thrombosis; while aneurysm growth is accentuated by the weakening of arterial walls enhanced by the pressure and shear forces exerted by the circulation system.

This presentation will consider the role of highly accurate numerical simulations of fluid flow in developing our understanding of cardiovascular disease. Two investigations will be considered; the first simulates the flow past an in-vitro thrombus. This investigation provides researchers with an accurate evaluation of the shear stress history of platelets encountering a thrombus in an in-vitro environment and represents the first step in our ability to completely simulate the growth of thrombi. Experimental measurement of the shear history on a platelet is currently impossible - and our investigations represent a breakthrough in this field. The second investigation considers fluid forces acting on non-axisymmetric abdominal aortic aneurysm profiles, and in particular the effect of eccentricity of the aneurysm profile on the fluid forces acting on the vessel walls. This effect has not been considered in the past, even though non-axisymmetric profiles are more representative of clinical cases.

Both investigations require significant computational resources, relying heavily on a highly efficient algorithm and highly parallelized computational architecture for success.

Chris's presentation

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