Turbulence in Aneurysms

Turbulence in Aneurysms: Numerical Investigation in Abdominal Aortic Aneurysms

Rawat, Digvijay (TU Delft Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering; TU Delft Process and Energy)

Poelma, Christian (mentor)
Pourquie, MAthieu (mentor)
Kotsonis, Marios (graduation committee)

Delft University of Technology

2017-10-24

An aneurysm refers to the local dilation or ballooning of a blood vessel and if left unchecked, almost every aneurysm continues to grow in size until it eventually ruptures. The abdominal aorta is the most common location for an aneurysm to form and an abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) can turn lethal in the event of rupture. Since the current clinical practice to classify AAAs is on the basis of their size (diameter), it was decided to investigate the impact of varying geometric parameters viz., the expansion ratio (ER) and the expansion angle (EA), on the pulsatile flow field in a hypothetical axisymmetric AAA (4A) geometry and in particular, investigate the role turbulence. All the combinations of ER and EA lead to a total of 8 cases. The simulations show that a vortex ring is shed just after peak systole in every case. The vortex ring, at inception, is similar for all cases within visual limits. As the ring travels downstream, an azimuthal instability sets in that grows with time. This is the short wave or the elliptical instability usually associated with a vortex pair perturbed by an infinitesimally small amplitude sinusoidal wave. The number of waves formed along the circumference of the ring as a result of the instability varies from case to case but in general, the number of waves decreases as the ER increases. The growth of this instability, along with interaction of the ring with the remnants of the flow field form the previous cardiac cycle, cause it to break down into smaller vortices thereby generating turbulent fluctuations. Further, subtle differences between various cases regarding the vortex ring breakdown mechanism are observed and discussed. Investigations are also carried out to identify recirculating or dead flow regions as in the context of an AAA, such a region indicates the presence an intraluminal thrombus (ILT) which is a commonly found feature in AAAs. An ILT deprives the surrounding arterial tissue of oxygen thereby weakening the aortic wall and increasing the risk of rupture. From the simulations, it could be seen that the inflection regions of the 4A geometry are most prone to the formation of an ILT which is in agreement with the physically observed locations. Finally, the oscillatory shear index (OSI) is investigated to see the influence of turbulence on a hemodynamic parameter. It was found that for the geometries tested, there is no clear co-relation between the two. From this thesis, numerous conclusions can be drawn. But perhaps the most important conclusion is that the flow field in an AAA is very complex and sensitive to various input parameters such as the ER and EA. Although flow parameters such as the Reynolds and the Womersley number are kept constant across all the cases, existing literature clearly highlights the dependence of the flow field on them. As such, the desire to be able to formulate general co-relation trends between various flow field quantities in AAAs is wishful thinking at best.

CFD
Turbulence
Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm
Oscillatory Shear Indes
blood flow

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:3b257aa3-5168-441f-9b16-8fad291edc1e

Student theses

master thesis

© 2017 Digvijay Rawat