2009
MAS 2009 Proceeding
Blood flow simulation of intracranial aneurysms
Authors: Wolfgang Fenz, Johannes Dirnberger
Abstract
In the course of the research project MEDVIS 3D (www.medvis3d.at), a clinical software application has been developed, capable of 3D reconstruction and visualization of intracranial aneurysms based on 2D medical image data. This system is now being extended with the functionality of a physically correct simulation of blood flow through aneurysms. It shall provide means to estimate rupture risks by calculating the distribution of pressure and shear stresses in the aneurysm, in order to support diagnosis and intervention planning. Due to the time-critical nature of the application, we are forced to use the most efficient state-of-the-art numerical methods and technologies. The elasticity equations for vessel walls and Navier- Stokes equations for blood flow are discretized via the Finite Element Method (FEM), and the resulting linear equation systems are handled by an Algebraic Multigrid (AMG) solver. The boundary conditions of both fluid and wall domains are coupled via Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) algorithms. In order to minimize computation time, the simulation will also be parallelized and distributed in the Austrian Grid network. First results using commercial Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) packages already show good medical relevance for diagnostic decision support. Our goal is to replace commercial modules step by step by our own implementations in order to end up with a license-free simulation system that is available for every hospital.
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