Particle image velocimetry study of pulsatile flow in bi-leaflet mechanical heart valves with image compensation method.

Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) is an important technique in studying blood flow in heart valves. Previous PIV studies of flow around prosthetic heart valves had different research concentrations, and thus never provided the physical flow field pictures in a complete heart cycle, which compromised their pertinence for a better understanding of the valvular mechanism. In this study, a digital PIV (DPIV) investigation was carried out with improved accuracy, to analyse the pulsatile flow field around the bi-leaflet mechanical heart valve (MHV) in a complete heart cycle.

Numerical simulation of a systemic flow test rig.

In this study, numerical simulation was carried out to investigate the dynamic response of a systemic flow test rig that is widely used for in vitro study of prosthesis in the cardiovascular system. In the system the physiological impedance of systemic circulation was modeled as a resistance-capacitance-resistance type. The system analysis was directly based on differential equations describing the system dynamics, and numerically solved using the fourth-order Runge-Kutta method.

Numerical simulation of opening process in a bileaflet mechanical heart valve under pulsatile flow condition.

Background And Aim Of The Study: Most previous computational fluid dynamics (CFD) studies of blood flow in mechanical heart valves (MHVs) have not efficiently addressed the important features of moving leaflet and blood-leaflet interaction. Herein, computationally efficient approaches were developed to study these features and to obtain better insight into the pulsatile flow field in bileaflet MHVs.

Methods: A simple and effective method to track the moving boundary was proposed, and an efficient method for calculating the blood-leaflet interaction applied.

Dynamic impact stress analysis of a bileaflet mechanical heart valve.

Background And Aims Of The Study: Mechanical heart valves (MHV) are widely used to replace dysfunctional and failed heart valves. The bileaflet MHV is very popular due to its superior hemodynamics. At present, bileaflet MHVs account for about two-thirds of the prosthetic heart valve market.