Spiral Flow Phantom for Ultrasound Flow Imaging Experimentation

Area of Science:

• Medical Imaging
• Fluid Dynamics
• Biomedical Engineering

Background:

• Accurate ultrasound flow estimation requires robust validation methods.
• Existing flow phantoms may not adequately represent complex, multi-directional blood flow patterns.
• Development of novel phantoms is crucial for advancing ultrasound flow imaging technologies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce a novel spiral flow phantom for evaluating ultrasound flow imaging methods.
• To assess the performance of color flow imaging (CFI) and vector flow imaging (VFI) using the developed phantom.
• To demonstrate the utility of the spiral phantom in analyzing flow estimation accuracy.

Main Methods:

• Designed and fabricated a novel Archimedean spiral flow phantom using lost-core casting.
• Characterized flow patterns using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations.
• Evaluated CFI and high-frame-rate VFI performance in steady flow conditions (3 mL/s).

Main Results:

• The spiral phantom generated multi-directional flow (0°–360°).
• CFI exhibited significant spurious coloring artifacts when visualizing flow within the phantom.
• VFI accurately depicted flow velocity magnitude and direction, demonstrating superior performance over CFI.

Conclusions:

• The spiral flow phantom is a valuable tool for holistically assessing ultrasound flow imaging accuracy.
• VFI shows promise for reliable flow estimation in complex vascular geometries.
• The phantom facilitates the demonstration and analysis of advanced dynamic flow visualization techniques.