NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF THE FILLING OF AN ELASTIC CHAMBER: A FIRST APPROACH TO THE DIASTOLIC FLOW IN THE LEFT VENTRICLE

Abstract

Owing to medical imaging technology it is now possible to ascertain the blood velocity field inside the left ventricle with a growing spatial and temporal resolution. The long–term goal of this technology is to obtain information of medical interest from the velocity field. Among other aims, it seeks to infer the elastic diastolic properties of the cardiac muscle, which are altered in a variety of pathologies. Driven by this issue and, as a first approach, ignoring the anatomical and structural details of the left ventricle, this work numerically studies the filling flow of a circular elastic chamber. The Navier–Stokes equations for the fluid within the cavity are solved and coupled with the solutions of the elasticity equations for the chamber wall by the boundary conditions in the internal border of the chamber, resulting in a fluidstructure interaction problem. Several numerical resolutions are shown, adjusting merely the Young modulus of the elastic wall and analysing how the flow inside the cavity alters.