3D CFD Simulation of Pulsatile Blood Flow in the Human Aorta

A three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation of the physiological pulsatile blood flow in the human aortic arch and its three branches has been conducted by using commercial software StarCD. The blood flow, of a peak Reynolds number of 3289 and a Womersley parameter of 16.44, was simulated in a rigid aorta geometry that was built by computer aided design (CAD) reconstruction method based on autopsy data of a female adult. The purpose of this work is to further the understanding of the complex nature of aorta flow, therefore it mainly focuses on analysis of the spatial and temporal distributions of velocities and wall shear stresses. The results, illustrated by 3D visualization pictures and 2D graphs of the primary velocity profiles, wall shear stress and pressure distributions, as well as the secondary flow patterns, are in good agreement with those of other experimental and computational works. The distributions of pressure and wall shear stress support the correlation between high and low shear stresses and pressures and the atherosclerotic lesions.