Abstract
Blood flow in the aorta is affected by both the geometry of the aorta and the flow dynamics in the left ventricle, resulting in complex-flow patterns. It has been suggested that such a complex flow plays a role in the localization of the vascular diseases such as aortic aheurysm and arteriosclerosis. CFD analyses combined with in vivo measurements are useful to investigate these effects. In this study, we measured the velocity profiles at a site just above the aortic valve with cine MRI phase contrast method. Then, these velocity profiles are used as a boundary condition at the inlet in a computational simulation of blood flow in the aorta. The results show that the velocity profiles at the inlet of the aorta are not uniform, which affects the flow in the region from the ascending aorta to the aortic arch.
