Realistic boundary conditions in SimVascular through inlet catheter modeling.

Amirtaha TaebiSelin BerkEmilie Roncali
Published in: BMC research notes (2021)
A pipeline is developed that generates boundary condition files which can be used in SimVascular CFD simulations. The boundary condition files are modified such that they simulate the effect of catheter presence on the flow field downstream of the inlet. Using this pipeline, the catheter flow, velocity profile, radius, wall thickness, and deviation from the vessel center can be defined. Since our method relies on the manipulation of the boundary condition that is imposed on the inlet, it is sensitive to the mesh density. The finer the mesh is (especially around the catheter wall), the more accurate the velocity estimations are. In this study, we also utilized this pipeline to qualitatively investigate the effect of catheter presence on the flow field in a truncated right hepatic arterial tree of a liver cancer patient.