Dynamic Simulation of Bioprosthetic Heart Valves Using a Stress Resultant Shell Model

Abstract

It is a widely accepted axiom that localized concentration of mechanical stress and large flexural deformation is closely related to the calcification and tissue degeneration in bioprosthetic heart valves (BHV). In order to investigate the complex BHV deformations and stress distributions throughout the cardiac cycle, it is necessary to perform an accurate dynamic analysis with a morphologically and physiologically realistic material specification for the leaflets. We have developed a stress resultant shell model for BHV leaflets incorporating a Fung-elastic constitutive model for in-plane and bending responses separately. Validation studies were performed by comparing the finite element predicted displacement and strain measures with the experimentally measured data under physiological pressure loads. Computed regions of stress concentration and large flexural deformation during the opening and closing phases of the cardiac cycle correlated with previously reported regions of calcification and/or mechanical damage on BHV leaflets. It is expected that the developed experimental and computational methodology will aid in the understanding of the complex dynamic behavior of native and bioprosthetic valves and in the development of tissue engineered valve substitutes.

Simulation of Blood flow in Artificial Heart Valve Design through Left heart

“…Deformation are observed in the middle of the leaflets as well as near the corners where two leaflets meet. This shows that, inertia of flow effect stress analysis result due pressure loads act into the leaflets [7]. This stress analysis is done to ensure the structural rigidity for an artificial heart valve during closed and opened.…”

Emerging Trends in Heart Valve Engineering: Part IV. Computational Modeling and Experimental Studies

“…in which pðx; tÞ is a Lagrange multiplier for the incompressibility constraint and v À1 x; t ð Þ is the material coordinate corresponding to physical coordinate x at time t. Various strain-energy functionals have been developed to describe heart valves, 156 including native 106 and bioprosthetic 84,85 valve leaflets. To determine the stress distribution within the leaflets in a static or quasi-static configuration, the fluid dynamics and the momentum of the solid may be neglected to solve the equilibrium problem:…”

On the multiscale modeling of heart valve biomechanics in health and disease

“…Other models added anisotropic (Kunzelman et al 1993) and nonlinear (Black et al 1991;Howard et al 2003) material descriptions. As with the static case, the dynamic solid-phase case is presently being used with advanced material models and relevant experimental work (Kim et al 2006(Kim et al , 2008, whose simulation results are shown in Fig. 3b.…”