Pulsatile blood flows through a bileaflet mechanical heart valve with different approach methods of numerical analysis; Pulsatile flows with fixed leaflets and interacted with moving leaflets

Abstract

Many researchers have investigated the blood flow characteristics through bileaflet mechanical heart valves using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models. Their numerical approach methods can be classified into three types; steady flow analysis, pulsatile flow analysis with fixed leaflets, and pulsatile flow analysis with moving leaflets. The first and second methods have been generally employed for two-dimensional and three-dimensional calculations. The pulsatile flow analysis interacted with moving leaflets has been recently introduced and tried only in two-dimensional analysis because this approach method has difficulty in considering simultaneously two physics of blood flow and leaflet behavior interacted with blood now. In this publication, numerical calculation for pulsatile flow with moving leaflets using a fluid-structure interaction method has been performed in a three-dimensional geometry. Also, pulsatile flow with fixed leaflets has been analyzed for comparison with the case with moving leaflets. The calculated results using the fluid-structure interaction model have shown good agreements with results visualized by previous experiments. In peak systole, calculations with the two approach methods have predicted similar now fields. However, the model with fixed leaflets has not been able to predict the flow fields during opening and closing phases. Therefore, the model with moving leaflets is rigorously required for advanced analysis of flow fields.