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The implications of two outlet boundary conditions on blood flow simulations in normal aorta of pediatric subjects

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Abstract

The blood flow in a normal aorta is simulated directly based on patient-specific data for boundary conditions. This study provides insight into the implications of using two different outlet boundary conditions in accurate modeling of the blood flow based on using pressure or flow rate outlet boundary conditions. Both boundary conditions at the outlet provided similar blood flow characteristics through the main aortic pathway with a reasonable accuracy of 4% relative to the laboratory measurements. Compared to the pressure outlet boundary condition, however, specifying the flow rate at the outlet underestimates pressure in the aortic arch and the flow rates through the outlets of the aortic arch. Additionally, using the flow rate boundary condition leads to an overestimation of peak local Reynolds Number in the aortic arch, and an inaccurate prediction of transition to turbulence.

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Abbreviations

SIM1:

Simulation 1—using pressure boundary condition

SIM2:

Simulation 2—using flow rate boundary condition

BC(s):

Boundary condition(s)

MRI:

Magnetic resonance imaging

CFD:

Computational fluid dynamics

FSI:

Fluid–structure interaction

\(\eta \) :

Kolmogorov length scale

\(\Delta x\) :

Grid element length

\(q^*\) :

Flow rate normalized by inlet flow rate

\(r^*\) :

Radius normalized by inlet radius

\(u^*\) :

Velocity normalized by average inlet velocity

\(u^+\) :

Velocity normalized by maximum inlet velocity

\({\hat{u}}^*\) :

Phase-averaged velocity normalized by average inlet velocity

\(p^*\) :

Pressure normalized by inlet pressure

\({\hat{P}}\) :

Phase-averaged pressure

\(d^*\) :

Distance along the main aorta pathway normalized by inlet diameter

\(\hbox {Re}_u\) :

Local Reynolds number

\(\alpha \) :

Distance from the center of a cross section to the edge, normalized to range between 0 and 1 in all directions

D :

Diameter of the inlet

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Acknowledgements

The simulations of blood flow are completed using the resources of Compute Canada. Experiments were performed based on ethics approval at the University of Alberta hospital and Alberta Children Hospital.

Funding

The simulations of blood flow are completed using the resources of Compute Canada. Funding is provided by the Computational Fluid Engineering Laboratory at the University of Alberta.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2R3, Canada

    Yuxi Jia & Arman Hemmati

  2. Department of Diagnostic Imaging and Radiology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2R3, Canada

    Kumaradevan Punithakumar & Michelle Noga

  3. Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2R3, Canada

    Kumaradevan Punithakumar

Authors
  1. Yuxi Jia
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  2. Kumaradevan Punithakumar
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  3. Michelle Noga
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  4. Arman Hemmati
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Arman Hemmati.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethics approval

Ethics approval was obtained from the University of Alberta hospital and Alberta Children Hospital.

Consent to participate

All authors have given consent for their participation in this research project.

Consent for publication

All authors have reviewed the manuscript and have given consent for its publication.

Availability of data and material

Patient-specific data are not publicly available.

Code availability

All simulations were performed using open-source software OpenFOAM and extend-FOAM 4.0. The specific setup used for this simulation is not publicly available, due to use of patient-specific boundary conditions.

Author’s contributions

YJ is the primary researcher and writer for the simulations presented in this manuscript. AH acts as a direct supervisor and has made large contributions to the writing of the manuscript and manuscript content. KP and MN obtained the patient-specific magnetic resonance imaging data, with ethics approval, and made minor revisions to the writing of the manuscript.

Additional information

Communicated by Jeff D. Eldredge.

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Jia, Y., Punithakumar, K., Noga, M. et al. The implications of two outlet boundary conditions on blood flow simulations in normal aorta of pediatric subjects. Theor. Comput. Fluid Dyn. 35, 419–436 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00162-021-00566-y

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