Simulation of unsteady blood flow dynamics in the thoracic aorta

Abstract

In this work, blood flow dynamics was analyzed in a realistic thoracic aorta (TA) model under unsteady-state conditions via velocity contours, secondary flow, pressure and wall shear stress (WSS) distributions. Our results demonstrated that the primary flow velocity is skewed towards the inner wall of the ascending aorta; but this skewness shifts towards the posterior wall in the aortic arch and then towards the anterior-outer wall in the descending aorta. Within the three arch branches, the flow velocity is skewed to the distal walls with flow reversal along the proximal walls. Strong secondary flow motion is observed in the TA, especially at the inlet of the arch branches. WSS is highly dynamic, but was found to be the lowest along the proximal walls of the arch branches. Finally, pressure was found to be low along the inner aortic wall and in the proximal walls of the arch branches, and high around the three stagnation regions distal to the arch branches and along the outer wall of the ascending aorta.