• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.54 no.2
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• pp.81-87
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• 2021

Background: Artificial grafts such as polyethylene terephthalate (Dacron) and expanded polytetrafluoroethylene (ePTFE) are used for various cardiovascular surgical procedures. The compliance properties of prosthetic grafts could affect hemodynamic energy, which can be measured using the energy-equivalent pressure (EEP) and surplus hemodynamic energy (SHE). We investigated changes in the hemodynamic energy of prosthetic grafts. Methods: In a simulation test, the changes in EEP for these grafts were estimated using COMSOL MULTIPHYSICS. The Young modulus, Poisson ratio, and density were used to analyze the grafts' material properties, and pre- and post-graft EEP values were obtained by computing the product of the pressure and velocity. In an in vivo study, Dacron and ePTFE grafts were anastomosed in an end-to-side fashion on the descending thoracic aorta of swine. The pulsatile pump flow was fixed at 2 L/min. Real-time flow and pressure were measured at the distal part of each graft, while clamping the other graft and the descending thoracic aorta. EEP and SHE were calculated and compared. Results: In the simulation test, the mean arterial pressure decreased by 39% for all simulations. EEP decreased by 42% for both grafts, and by around 55% for the native blood vessels after grafting. The in vivo test showed no significant difference between both grafts in terms of EEP and SHE. Conclusion: The post-graft hemodynamic energy was not different between the Dacron and ePTFE grafts. Artificial grafts are less compliant than native blood vessels; however, they can deliver pulsatile blood flow and hemodynamic energy without any significant energy loss.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.62-73
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• 2017

To identify a solution for the restricted availability of healthy lungs and the high risk of immune rejections following organ transplantation, tissue engineering techniques for culturing lungs have been studied by many research groups. The most promising method for culturing lungs is the utilization of a bio-scaffold that was prepared using harvested organs from human donors or other animals by removing their original cells. In this study, a pulsatile perfusion pump was used to alleviate the cell removal effect with the high fluid-dynamic power of the perfusion stream during the decellularization process, while other conventional studies focused on chemical methods to identify efficient detergents. The purpose of this study was to analyze the developed device by using energy equivalent pressure (EEP), which is an indicator of pulsatility, to understand the characteristics of pulsatile energy transmitted according to the load size by using the artificial model and compare it with the measured EEP. The pulsatility of the device can be estimated with the concept of fluid-dynamic energy during a particular constant time period or fluid-dynamic power represented as EEP and EEP increment. Because the measured EEP of perfusion flow during decellularization can be changed by the amount of fluid leakage and the degree of clogging in the capillary vessels, EEP should be measured to determine whether the decellularization is progressing without problems. The decrement of EEP caused by the high perfusion resistance was observed from some experimental results that were obtained with artificial models. EEP can be used to monitor the decellularization process after analyzing the varying EEP according to the amount of load. It was confirmed that the EEP was maintained at a high level in the experiment using the harvested lungs from 12-13-week-old rats. In addition, it was confirmed that the cell removal time was faster than when continuous perfusion was performed. In this study, pulsatile power delivered to the lungs was measured to monitor the process of cell removal, and it serve as the evidence for efficient decellularization.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.38 no.12
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• pp.971-974
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• 2014

A ventricular assist device (VAD) is used for bridge to heart transplantation and heart diseases. Knowing the status of a pneumatic pulsatile VAD when implanting it into the body is important: when the velocity of blood flow through the VAD is slow, a thrombus may occur, and thrombosis can be fatal to a patient. In order to determine the state of a VAD, various sensors need to be implanted. Because this introduces the risk of infection and difficulties with sensor management, we developed a method for estimating the state of a VAD indirectly via the pressure in an air tube that can be measured in vitro. We compared the measured values to in vitro experimental results. The estimated and measured values showed some errors, but the accuracy can be improved by refining the estimation process to minimize the risk of infection.

• Advances in biomechanics and applications
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.127-141
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• 2014

A preliminary study of a new pulsatile pump that will work to a frequency greater than 1 Hz, is presented. The fluid-structure interaction between a Newtonian blood flow and a piston drive that moves with periodic speed is simulated. The mechanism is of double effect and has four valves, two at the input flow and two at the output flow; the valves are simulated with specified velocity of closing and reopening. The simulation is made with finite elements software named COMSOL Multiphysics 3.3 to resolve the flow in a preliminary planar configuration. The geometry is 2D to determine areas of high speeds and high shear stresses that can cause hemolysis and platelet aggregation. The opening and closing valves are modelled by solid structure interacting with flow, the rhythmic opening and closing are synchronized with the piston harmonic movement. The boundary conditions at the input and output areas are only normal traction with reference pressure. On the other hand, the fluid structure interactions are manifested due to the non-slip boundary conditions over the piston moving surfaces, moving valve contours and fix pump walls. The non-physiologic frequency pulsatile pump, from the viewpoint of fluid flow analysis, is predicted feasible and with characteristic of low hemolysis and low thrombogenesis, because the stress tension and resident time are smaller than the limit and the vortices are destroyed for the periodic flow.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Visualization
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.14-23
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• 2023

The pressure difference across stenotic blood vessels is a commonly used clinical metric for diagnosing many cardiovascular diseases. At present, most clinical pressure measurements rely solely on invasive catheterization. In this study, we propose a novel method for non-invasive pressure estimation using the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations and a 3D multi-path integration approach. We verify spatio-temporal convergence on an in-silico dataset of a cylindrical straight pipe phantom with steady and pulsatile flow fields. We then evaluate the proposed method on an in vitro dataset of reconstructed control, pre-operative, and post-operative carotid artery cases acquired from 4D flow MRI. The performance of our method is compared to existing approaches based on the pressure Poisson equation and work-energy relative pressure. The results demonstrate the proposed method's high accuracy, robustness to spatio-temporal subsampling, and reduced sensitivity to noise, highlighting its great potential for non-invasive pressure estimation.

• International Journal of Vascular Biomedical Engineering
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.25-30
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• 2004

Catheters are used to measure translesional pressure gradients in the stenosed coronary arteries. Uses of catheters during coronary angioplasty cause flow obstructions. A narrowed flow cross section with catheter effectively introduced a tighter stenosis than the enlarged residual stenoses after balloon angiplasty. Catheters in blood vessels cause pressure gradient rise and blood flow drop during the measurements. In this study, three dimensional computer simulations are conducted to investigate the flow blockage effects due to the catheter obstructions during the coronary angioplasty. The computer simulation models are generated by the data, which are measured by coronary angiogram, and the blood is treated as non-Newtonian fluid. The velocity, pressure, and wall shear stress variations are observed for the estimate of damages of blood vessel. This study is also extended to investigate the effects of stenotic vessel size, and shape and catheter size and location.

• 유체기계공업학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2002.12a
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• pp.504-512
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• 2002

Bileaflet mechanical valves have the complications such as hemolytic and thromboembolic events, leaflet damage, and leaflet break. These complications are related with the fluid velocity and shear stress characteristics of mechanical heart valves. This fact makes clear the importance of determining the fluid velocity and shear stress characteristics of mechanical heart valves, and requires a detailed understanding of these system properties and further substantial research. The first aim of current study is to introduce fluid-structure interaction method for calculation of unsteady and three-dimensional blood flow through bileaflet valve and leaflet behavior interacted with its flow, and to overcome the shortness of previous studies, where the leaflet motion has been ignored or simplified, by using FSI method. To accomplish this goal, a finite volume computational fluid dynamics code and a finite element structure dynamics code have been used concurrently to solve the flow and structure equations, respectively, to investigate the interaction between the blood flow and leaflet. Physiologic ventricular and aortic pressure waveforms were prescribed as flow boundary conditions. The interaction of aortic flow and valve motion were computed.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.613-622
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• 2001

Interaction of blood flow and leaflet behavior in a bileaflet mechanical heart valve was investigated using computational analysis. Blood flows of a Newtonian fluid and a non-Newtonian fluid with Carreau model were modeled as pulsatile, laminar, and incompressible. A finite volume computational fluid dynamics code and a finite element structure dynamics code were used concurrently to solve the flow and structure equations, respectively, where the two equations were strongly coupled. Physiologic ventricular and aortic pressure waveforms were used as flow boundary conditions. Flow fields, leaflet behaviors, and shear stresses with time were obtained for Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluid cases. At the fully opened phase three jets through the leaflets were found and large vortices were present in the sinus area. At the very final stage of the closing phase, the angular velocity of the leaflet was enormously large. Large shear stress was found on leaflet tips and in the orifice region between two leaflets at the final stage of closing phase. This method using fluid-structure interaction turned out to be a useful tool to analyze the different designs of existing and future bileaflet valves.

• 한국전산유체공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.03b
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• pp.10-12
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• 2008

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.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.91-93
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• 1989

We have developed a monoleaflet polymer valve as an inexpensive and viable alternative, especially for short-term use in the ventricular assist device or total artificial heart. The frame and leaflet of the polymer valve were made from polyurethane, To evaluate the hemodynamic performance of the polymer valve a comparative study of flow dynamics past a polymer valve and a St. Jude Medical prosthetic valve under physiological pulsatile flow conditions in vitro was made. Comparisons between the valves were made on the transvalvular pressure drop, regurgitation volume and maximum valve opening area. The polymer valve showed smaller regurgitation volume and transvalvular pressure drop compared to the mechanical valve at higher heart rate. The results showed that the functional characteristics of the polymer valve compared favorably with those of the mechanical valve at higher heart rate.