Numerical Simulation in Patient-Specific Internal Carotid Aneurysm

The objective of this study is to investigate the hemodynamics in patient-specific internal carotid aneurysm and discuss the reason for rupture of aneurysm. A 3-Dimensional pulsatile blood flow in internal carotid with a sidewall aneurysm was studied numerically with the average Reynolds number of 704. Patient-specific model whose parent artery has a large "S" bending and a sidewall aneurysm was constructed from CT data. Unsteady, incompressible, 3-Dimensional Navier-Stokes equations were employed to solve the flow field. The temporal distributions of hemodynamic variables during the cardiac cycle such as streamlines, wall pressure and wall shear stress (WSS) in the arteries and aneurysm were analyzed. From streamlines it can be found that there is an obvious vortex flow in aneurismal cavity in a cardiac cycle. The type of this vortex flow is not changed in a cardiac cycle. As far as Wall Shear Stress, there is a region in aneurismal neck where the value of WSS is relatively high. Growth and rupture mechanism of internal carotid aneurysm in patient can be analyzed based on patient-specific model and hemodynamics simulation.