The fluid-structure interaction during blood flow in a flexible stenotic thoracic aorta: Numerical study

A detailed study of the effect of coarctation on the blood flow of the thoracic aorta was carried out by modeling the interaction between blood and the aortic wall. Fluid-structure interaction (FSI) simulations were performed on the thoracic aorta geometries of healthy and diseased patients obtained from medical images. The pulsating flow of non-Newtonian blood was set by the boundary condition for the velocity in the form of a periodic physiological wave depending on time. As a result, the parameters of blood flow and vessel deformation were evaluated. It is shown that the velocity value at the site of aortic narrowing increases and falls after the narrowing. In addition, it can be noted that the value of pressure in the healthy aorta was higher than in the aorta with CoA, but at the same time, the pressure in the CoA model increased after the coarctation zone. It was noted that the shear stresses for the two models showed little difference and WSS was overestimated in the diseased aorta. As can be seen from the obtained data, using numerical simulation, important characteristics were determined to assess the influence of the fluid-structure interaction during blood flow in the flexible stenotic thoracic aorta.