Pulsatile Flow Interaction between Aorta and Pulmonary Artery

Abstract

Introduction: Hypoplastic left heart patients have significant blood flow unbalance in the cardiovascular system; excess blood flows from the right ventricles to the lung. Patent Ductus Arteriosus (PDA) stenting prevents excess blood flow and shunts the blood flow to the aorta through PDA without conventional heart surgeries. On the other hand, past clinical researches report that PDA stenting can bring on thrombosis around ductus arteriosus. This study elucidated the hemodynamics of the aorta-pulmonary artery system by using three patient-specific morphological data, experimentally and numerically. Methods: This study carried out Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) measurement and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis for three patient-specific models. Results: The experimental and numerical analysis clarified transient hemodynamics in the aorta-pulmonary artery system; pulmonary blood flow was shunt to the aorta at the peak systole and diastole. Q-criterion, which indicates both the second-order invariant of turbulence flow and the structure’s characteristics, was generated in the PDA at the same period. Conclusion: This study found the influence of PDA morphology on transient hemodynamics; the highest Q-criterion in the PDA is 600 [s-2]; on the contrary, the lowest case is around 200 [s-2]. These flow characteristics are essential factors in thrombus formation in PDA.