Computational simulation of the hemodynamic behavior of a blood vessel network

Abstract

During development, blood vessel networks adapt to gradual changes in the oxygen required by surrounding tissue, shear stress, and mechanical stretch. The possible adaptations include remodeling the vessel network and thickening the walls of blood vessels. However, the treatment of several vascular diseases including cerebral arteriovenous malformations, arteriosclerosis, aneurysms, and vascular retinal disorders, may lead to abrupt changes that could produce hemorrhage or other problems. Modeling the hemodynamic behavior of a blood vessel network may help assess or even diminish the risks associated with each treatment. In this work, we briefly describe the radiological studies available to study the anatomy and hemodynamics of a patient.We then describe the segmentation, smoothing, healing, skeletonyzation, and meshing processes that are needed to obtain an initial model for the numerical simulations. Additionally, we state some important concepts about blood rheology and blood vessel elasticity. Further, we include a system of equations to describe the interaction between flowing blood and the elastic blood vessels.