Effects of Turbulent Blood Flow on Abdominal Aortic Aneurysms: A Fluid-Structure Interaction Study

Abstract

Abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA), local dilations of the infrarenal aorta, is the 13th leading cause of mortality in US. Various tools have been used to investigate the effect of blood flow on the mechanics of AAA, which might predict its fracture potential, a life-threaten event. The modeling techniques are gaining popularity, including the partially or fully coupled fluid-structure interaction method (p-FSI and f-FSI, respectively) and the static computational solid stress (CSS) analyses. In the present study, comparison among the above mentioned three computational methods were performed to identify the effective means to characterize the effects of pulsatile turbulent blood flow on predicting the stress distribution on AAA. Results have shown that ignorance of blood flow in simulation will underestimate the wall stress calculation and the flexibility of aneurysm wall has a large impact in simulating the blood through the AAA.