University of Karlsruhe (TH) - Institute for Fluid Dynamics
The patient-specific Karlsruhe Heart Model (KaHMo) has been developed at the Institute for Fluid Mechanics, University of Karlsruhe (TH), Germany, to characterise cardiac flow conditions. The current numerical CFD-approach (based on StarCD) describes the inner ventricular wall movement by segmentation of Magnetic Resonance Images (MRI). This allows the transient flow pattern as well as the total losses to be analysed precisely. However, as the internal flow pattern is also influenced by numerous external biomechanical processes, the myocardial structure is now taken into account to understand the overall cardiac conditions.
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KaHMo FSI (Karlsruhe Heart Model, Fluid-Structure-Interaction)
Used Approach (Software, Numerics, Modelling)
Consequently, for KaHMo FSI, the prescribed geometry will be replaced by simulated wall deformation within a separate stand-alone calculation process (Abaqus).
The time dependent fluid domain is represented via mesh dynamic routines (Fluent) using the code coupling interface (MpCCI).
However, for the chosen structural and fluid dynamic software combination MpCCI's current algorithms are restricted to a so called explicit coupling where the data exchange is executed only once per time-step.
This kind of coupling tends to numerical instabilities for critical ratios of the fluid density, the structural density and the stiffness.
These circumstances play an important role when simulating e.g. blood flow in bio-fluidmechanics or hydro-elasticity (as opposed to aero-elasticity, where the fluid is considerably less dense as the structure) phenomena in general.
Expected Results
Therefore we are working on implicit coupling mechanisms for unsteady simulations which allow an iterative, strong, but still partitioned coupling which can satisfy the equilibrium condition for each time step.
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Universität Karlsruhe (TH)
Institute for Fluid Dynamics
Torsten Schenkel
Kaiserstraße 10
76137 Karlsruhe
torsten.schenkel@kit.edu
University of Cooperative Education
Virtual Engineering
MpCCI is developed and distributed by Fraunhofer-Institute SCAI.