Computational Fluid Dynamic Solvers are being used in the medical domain ever more frequently. For instance, understanding of exact mechanics of blood-tissue interaction turns out to be crucial for preventing aneurys in main blood vessels. Influence of stents on the blood flow pattern after surgery is investigated as well. One can also can analyze the effectiveness of drug-releasing implants. Finally, rheology of blood is a very broad research topic on its own. Blood flow simulation models range from continuum ones with shear-rate dependent viscosity to complex suspensions with distinct red blood cells and protein ligaments.
QuickerSim CFD Toolbox for MATLAB® lets you do all that! Obtain the geometry of your organ, take care of the whole pre-processing using rich library of MATLAB's image-acquisition tools, and generate the computational mesh. Then start the blood flow simulation in the same environment without any need to export data to external solver.
Case 1: Simulation of pulsatile blood flow - non-Newtonian rheology, the so-called Carreau-Yasuda model. The shear rate on the carotid sides is shown. Its value needs to be kept below certain threshold to prevent development of abnormal tissue growth that leads to aneurysm.
You can check out this case in the Tutorial 18 - Blood Flow Simulation.
Case 2: Flow in the peristaltic blood pump. In order not to introduce large shear forces on the blood cells the flow is driven solely by the motion of the side walls. In reality, it is generated by a rotating element. Such mesh deformations are readily handled in the Toolbox.