The purpose of the Biomedical Flows and Structures project is the explore whether computational fluid and solid mechanics can help to increase the understanding of commmon problems in clinical medicine, both in patient-specific cases and for diseases in general.
Research focus
- Aneurysms in the brain. Rupture of aneurysms may cause stroke, leading to death or strong disabilities. We investigate the hypothesis that an abnormal blood vessel anatomy causes pathogenesis due to abnormal flow, deformation and stress. Computational models are validated against clinical data.
- Flow of cerebrospinal fluid. The Chiari I malformation, where a lower part of the brain is displaced, leads to disturbed flow of the cerebrospinal fluid in the brain the spinal canal. Cyst formation in the spine often occurs in this context and is correlated with headache, visual disturbances, and motor dysfunction. We investigate how abnormal anatomy affects the flow conditions and how this can result in cyst formation. This is a problem that is not yet understood in medicine.
- Deformation and flow around the mitral valve. To improve heart valve surgery, increased understanding of how valves function is important. We have created and validated solid mechanics models of the mitral valve in the heart. We are in the process of coupling the valve motion with the blood flow, which is a very computationally challenging fluid-structure interaction problem. This research is mainly done by the NTNU biomechanics group, which is a part of CBC.
- Particle transport in the airways. Drug delivery by inhalation has a significant potential for replacing pills, but requires a throrough understanding of how areosols are transported in the airway system during breathing. Oscillatory transition between laminar and turbulent flow, and the effect on particle transport, is a particular challenge here. The similar problem setting also arises when inhalating polluted air, for instance, in the vicinity of industrial sites or during terror attacks. This reasearch is mainly performed at FFI and the University of Cyprus (both are collaborating partners in CBC).
