Three-dimensional Ultrasound Doppler Simulation for Vascular Bifurcation Model

The three-dimensional ultrasound Doppler analysis of the blood flow in a bifurcated blood vessel was simulated using MATLABTM. Blood cells are treated as point scatterers randomly distributed in the blood vessel. The blood vessel model is divided into three regions, including the main branch and two subbranches of bifurcation. The velocity and next position of a scatterer (or blood cell) are determined by the laminar flow. The blood flow is simulated by displacing the scatterers between pulse emissions. The axial velocity is estimated using the autocorrelation method on the radio frequency (RF) data simulated by Field II software. A 3D Doppler analysis with angles of rotation of the transducer can accurately rebuild the blood flow direction and the lateral velocity component in each region. This simulation package provides a platform to evaluate the performance of 3-D Doppler imaging methods before the clinical application.