Aortic Coarctation is a congenital constriction of the aorta that increases blood pressure above the constriction and hinders the flow below it. Based on a 3D surface mesh of a moderate thoracic coarctation, a high quality volume mesh is created using an optimal tetrahedral aspect ratio for whole domain. In order to quantify the severity of this constriction, a coupled 1D lumped-parameter/3D CFD approach is used to calculate the pressure drop through the coarctation. The CFD computation is performed assuming that the arterial wall is rigid and the blood is considered a homogeneous Newtonian fluid with density r = 0.001 gr/mm3 and a dynamic viscosity m = 0.004 gr/mm/sec in laminar flow. The boundary conditions of the 3D model (inlet and outlet conditions) have been calculated using a 1D model. Parallelization procedures will be used in order to increase the performance of the CFD calculations.

Peer Reviewed