Controlling the Flow Separation in Heart Valves Using Vortex Generators

A comprehensive computational study is performed to investigate the effectiveness of vortex generators (VGs) applied to mechanical bi-leaflet heart valves. Co-rotating and counter-rotating VG configurations are compared to a control valve without VGs. Detailed flow fields are obtained and used to el...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Annals of biomedical engineering 2022-08, Vol.50 (8), p.914-928
Main Authors: Wang, Zhenyu, Dasi, Lakshmi Prasad, Hatoum, Hoda
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aerospace engineering
Biochemistry
Biological and Medical Physics
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Biomedical engineering
Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering
Biomedicine
Biophysics
Blood
Blood platelets
Classical Mechanics
Computer applications
Configuration management
Damage
Design
Flow control
Fluid flow
Heart
Heart valves
Hemodynamics
Investigations
Kinetic energy
Original Article
Peripheral jet flow
Reynolds number
Rotation
Separation
Shear stress
Viscosity
Vortex generators
Vortices
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Summary:A comprehensive computational study is performed to investigate the effectiveness of vortex generators (VGs) applied to mechanical bi-leaflet heart valves. Co-rotating and counter-rotating VG configurations are compared to a control valve without VGs. Detailed flow fields are obtained and used to elucidate the underlying flow physics. It was found that VGs reduce flow separation over the leaflets and hence reduce the Reynolds shear stress (RSS) in the vicinity regions of heart valve. The co-rotating VG configuration demonstrates a better performance compared with the counter-rotating configuration in terms of the RSS, turbulent kinetic energy production and velocity distributions, especially in the peripheral jet flows. The fraction of blood damage in the co-rotating configuration shows a 4.7% reduction in comparison to the control case, while a 3.7% increase is observed in the counter-rotating configuration. The passive flow control technique of applying co-rotating VG illustrates a great potential to help mitigate the hemodynamic factors leading to potential blood damage risk.
ISSN:0090-6964
1573-9686
DOI:10.1007/s10439-022-02966-5