The impact of inlet velocity profile shape on computational hemodynamic results in left circumflex coronary arteries

Nowadays, hemodynamics of cardiovascular networks can be non-invasively analyzed by means of numerical simulations. Such method, based on patient-specific clinical images, represents a very useful instrument in diagnoses of vascular diseases and post-surgical follow-ups. To make the numerical model and also the results as realistic as possible and describe properly the blood flow, suitable boundary conditions are required. The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate the impact that inflow velocity profile shape has on hemodynamic results. In order to do that, left coronary circumflex clinical images of 6 subjects that underwent invasive coronary cineangiography after heart transplant with no sign of atherosclerosis provided by Città della Salute e della Scienza hospital (Turin, Italy) were considered. After the 3-dimensional reconstruction of the vessels, 11 different velocity profiles were custom-made taking in account secondary flows for some of them. Then, steady-state computational hemodynamics simulations were performed prescribing the custom-made profiles to each model and their results were compared using some of the most used hemodynamic descriptors. As can be seen from the results, except for the zone of the models located near the inlet surface where the characteristics of the velocity profile mostly influences the hemodynamic behaviour, the differences between the results are minimal.