Computer graphics approach for understanding prosthetic heart valve characteristics

Abstract: Fluid dynamics principles and numerical analysis techniques are applied in a study of stress distribution in blood caused by the motion of the occluder within the cage of a prosthetic heart valve model. An interactive computer graphics program is developed for the simulation of the flow process and the pictorial representation of the solution for analysis. Resulting graphics displays show the stree distributions and other flow parameters which describe the movement of a disc occluder from full-closed position to an almost full-open position. The possible contributions of this study to the understanding of hemolysis and thrombosis associated with prosthetic heart valves are discussed