Development of a Flow Simulator for Evaluation of Hemodynamics Computational Simulation

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death globally. It is responsible for most deaths caused by heart attacks and strokes, which may occur due to stenosis or aneurysm in blood vessels. Intravascular therapy is a minimally invasive medical treatment that is carried out directly into the affected blood vessel without the need for open surgery. There is significant ongoing research into intravascular therapy for the treatment of cardiovascular disease, particularly in the fields of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. CFD simulation in the development of intravascular treatment has been widely used for treatment planning, hemodynamics analysis, medical device development and design optimization. However, to ensure the accuracy and reliability of these simulations, it is necessary to validate the results using specific models and evaluation devices. Validation testing is crucial in CFD simulations as a result of the use of various parameters, such as assumptions, numerical methods, and boundary conditions. Furthermore, due to the challenges of directly observing and measuring within vessels, it is crucial to have an evaluation device that can effectively represent their hemodynamic conditions.To meet this need, it is necessary to carry out vascular modeling related to flow conditions in vessels that can be used to evaluate the results of computational simulations and modeling more broadly. This research focus on developing an evaluation that modeling a flow circuit device to represent the hemodynamic conditions with a measurement platform using a micro-pumping system equipped with a flow rate sensor to monitor instantaneous conditions in the vessel model. Specifically, the model used is an extradural internal carotid artery (ICA) aneurysm patient-specific case and was fabricated using additive manufacturing made of flexible resin. A steady state conditions from the peristaltic pumps were used in this experimental study to provide the analysis of flow rate measurements and study the hemodynamics conditions in an aneurysm-affected vessel. The pump produced a flow rate range of 0.03 – 0.23 L/min, matching with the Reynolds number in ICA within the range of 300 – 500. Different parental artery length results in a difference in the flow rate measurement. The longer one gives no change in the values between inlet and outlet positions, while the second measurement showed a difference of 10%.