MULTISCALE COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS MODELING AS AN AID TO SURGICAL PLANNING –some applications to palliative treatment of congenital heart disease
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has evolved and matured over the past decades and is now a mainstay of engineering analysis applied pervasively in nearly all engineering disciplines. In the past decade, CFD is seen to be increasingly utilized as a tool in medical applications in device design and surgical treatment planning. In cardiovascular applications, a CT-scan or an MRI of a patient is utilized to extract the 3D geometry of the portion of the vasculature of interest using specialized medical segmentation software. Pulsatile hemodynamics are resolved in a multi-scale scheme by coupling 3D time-accurate CFD computations of the anatomical region of interest with a 0D lumped parameter electric circuit model of the unresolved peripheral vasculature that provides the driving time-dependent flow and pressure waveforms boundary conditions. Applications are presented of this multi-scale CFD strategy to surgical planning of palliative treatment of congenital heart disease.
Acknowledgement: This research was sponsored by American Heart Association Grant in Aid Award AHA-11GRNT7940011and Innovative Research Grant Award AHA-5IRG22470015.