Multiscale simulation of blood flow in the coronary arteries

Amanda Peters, Harvard University

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We present a computational model for blood flow in coronary arteries. The simulation uses the Lattice Boltzmann method coupled with microscopic molecular dynamics modeling of the red blood cells, which interact with one another and the surrounding fluid, to provide a multiphysics and multiscale representation of the flow in patient-specific geometries derived from computed tomography angiography (CTA) data. We provide here the derivation for introducing the deformational forces exerted on the arterial flows from the movement of the heart by borrowing concepts from cosmodynamics. Here we present this method as well as provide an analysis of the impact of these additional forces on the endothelial shear stress, a quantity associated with the localization and progression of heart diseases like atherosclerosis. We also discuss the techniques leveraged to achieve excellent scaling on up to 294,912 processor cores.

Abstract Author(s): Amanda Peters, Simone Melchionna, Jonas Latt, Sauro Succi, Efthimios Kaxiras