Distributed lumped parameter modeling of blood flow in compliant vessels.

Abstract

We extend our previous distributed lumped parameter (DLP) modeling approach to take into account blood vessel wall deformability. This is achieved by adding a compliance term for each vascular segment based on 1D NS equations. The results of the proposed method are compared against 1D Navier-Stokes and 3D fluid-structure interaction (FSI) modeling in idealized and patient-specific models. We show that 1D Navier-Stokes blood flow modeling can be highly inaccurate in predicting flow and pressure dynamics in diseased cases, while in comparison the DLP approach produces consistently accurate flow and pressure waveforms as compared to 3D FSI modeling. The relative accuracy and computational efficiency of the proposed DLP approach offer the possibility to replace or augment 1D or 3D modeling to study hemodynamics in a variety of applications.