Coupled Fluid-Structure Interaction Simulation of Prosthetic Heart Valves

Artificial heart valves are medical devices that are implanted in patients to replace a diseased native heart valve. They could be classified according to their shape and materials used to manufacture them into mechanical, biological, tissue-engineered and polymeric valves. Approximately 2% of the US population suffer from valvular heart disease (VHD) with the most common causes being aortic stenosis (AS) mostly due to calcification of the aortic valve and aortic valve insufficiency. This paper deals with the numerical simulation of a biological prosthetic aortic valve (AV). This type of valves is composed of three leaflets configured in a complex hemispherical geometry. The leaflets have a variable thickness distribution being thicker at the attachments and free edges and thinner at the belly of the leaflet. Important design parameters for PHVs include effective orifice area, jet velocity, pressure gradient, regurgitation and thrombogenic potential. The objective is to showcase a framework within LS-DYNA® to perform a coupled Fluid Structure Interaction simulation (FSI) of a prosthetic valve and the possible different procedures used to evaluate the design parameters which can be used for a later optimization procedure.