The impact of aorta vessel wall flexibility on the blood flow through the bileaflet mechanical heart valve

Pulsatile turbulent flow characteristics in a flexible aortic with 23-mm On-X mechanical heart valve were analyzed numerically. Geometry of the aorta is derived from the medical images, and the Ogden model has been utilized for the mechanical behavior of it. The 3D numerical simulation on the fully-coupled fluid-structure interaction (FSI) analysis was utilized in this work.Model is conducted throughout the accelerating systole phase in time-dependent physiological condition. Blood flow characteristics such as the streamlines, turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) as well as viscous and turbulent shear stress were precisely captured in the flow domainspecifically in the hinge region. Our results showed that the mechanical behavior of vessel wall and its flexibility influence the fluid flow characteristics especially in the vicinity of the leaflets. By changing the aorta wall from rigid to flexible up to fully open state, maximum fluid velocity in leaflets vicinity decreased up to 6%. Moreover, flexible wall results in an increase of transvalvular pressure gradient (TPG) by 8%.

کلیدواژه ها:

Bileaflet mechanical heart valve ، Numerical simulation ، Flexible vessel wall