Virtual prototyping of branching blood vessels

Computational fluid-particle dynamics is a powerful and cost-saving tool for flow systems analyses, interactions with experimental or clinical studies, and virtual prototyping. Specifically, of interest to vascular surgeons and graft manufacturers alike are new geometric design recommendations for branching blood vessels based on significant reductions of "disturbed flow" indicators, which have been correlated to the onset of blood vessel diseases. Using three types of branching blood vessels as illustrative examples with an emphasis on the human carotid artery bifurcation, the transient 3D flow fields, demonstrating "disturbed flow", are briefly discussed. Several indicator functions, based on the local wall shear stress, pressure, and particle distributions, are then defined and selectively applied to interpret abnormal biological events and experimental/clinical data sets. Focusing on carotid endarterectomy reconstruction for stroke prevention, a new carotid artery bifurcation is prototyped and discussed.