Study of hemodynamic in the iliac bifurcation through Fluid-Structure Interaction simulations
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Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death in Europe and in the United States of America. One of the most common cardiovascular diseases is atherosclerosis, which is characterized by the presence of deposits in intimal wall of small and medium arteries, including fat substances, calcium, elements and others products transformed of blood flow [1]. This set of deposits is called plaque originating a kind of arterial wall thickness. The plaque development occurs more often at complex flow zones, where the artery is bifurcated, curved and has a junction. The objective of this research is to quantify the relationship between atherogenesis and features in hemodynamics when a flexible artery is assumed. It was studied the effect of different wall compliance in a realistic bifurcated segment of iliac artery. The numerical research was carried out using Ansys workbench: Fluent for the Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) and Ansys Mechanical for structural analysis. It will be considered pulsatile blood flow within a realistic bifurcated segment of iliac artery, able to reproduce the infra-renal cardiac cycle, particular of the abdominal aorta downstream the renal arteries. The pulsatile profile of this cycle presents the specificity of including a period of reverse flow, or a backflow. Blood flow is turbulent and well predicted by the incompressible form of the Navier-Stokes equations. The elasticity or stiffness of blood vessels has great importance, since it directly influences the way that blood flows inside veins and arteries. The FSI numerical studies allowed the velocity distribution analysis along the geometric domain. The parameters that may affect the disease are the iliac bifurcation geometry, wall compliance and different distributions of the outflow by the two iliac arteries, probably due to stenosis in the subsequent arteries.