In vitro experimental study on flow characteristics of abdominal aorta aneurysm

복부대동맥 동맥류의 유동특성에 관한 in vitro 실험적 연구

Hemodynamic features of blood flow in the abdominal aorta aneurysm (AAA) are very important, because they are closely related with the rupture of aneurysm to death. It has been considered that the wall shear stress of blood flows influences the formation, growth, and rupture of AAA. On this account, it is important to understand the flow structure of blood in the aneurysm. In this study, the whole velocity field information inside a typical AAA was measured using an in vitro AAA model under the pulsatile flow condition. The vessel geometry was reconstructed based on the computerized tomography (CT) data of a patient. The AAA model was made by using a rapid prototyping (RP) method, based on the reconstructed vessel geometry. Velocity fields in the AAA model were measured at different pulsatile phases using a PIV (particle image velocimetry) system. As experimental results, a large-scale vortex is formed inside the AAA model and the vortices located near the AAA wall are supposed to increase the local pressure and wall shear stress. In this study, the AAA wall stress found to be was one of the most important governing parameters giving rise to the ruptured aneurysm.