An efficient procedure for the blood flow computer simulation of patient-specific aortic dissections

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Computational Fluid Dynamics
• Medical Imaging

Background:

• Patient-specific aortic dissections pose challenges for numerical simulation due to complex geometries.
• Accurate modeling of the intimal flap, a thin-walled structure, is crucial for simulating dissections.
• Existing methods for meshing thin-walled bodies are often complex and error-prone.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a novel methodology for the numerical simulation of patient-specific aortic dissections.
• To enable seamless virtual prototyping of customized aortic dissection scenarios.
• To simplify the simulation preprocessing for complex thin-walled structures like the intimal flap.

Main Methods:

• A two-step segmentation procedure decoupling fluid volume and intimal flap meshing.
• Utilizing a CutFEM (Cut Finite Cell Method) technique for thin-walled bodies.
• Embedding a surface mesh of the intimal flap into a volumetric fluid mesh using a level set function.

Main Results:

• Successfully simulated blood flow in four patient-specific aortic dissections with intricate geometries.
• Demonstrated simplified preprocessing without increasing computational time.
• Obtained simulation results consistent with clinical evidence and prior research.

Conclusions:

• The proposed methodology offers a robust and simplified approach for simulating patient-specific aortic dissections.
• The novel segmentation and CutFEM technique effectively handle the intimal flap, improving simulation accuracy.
• This method facilitates virtual prototyping and enhances understanding of dissection hemodynamics.