Computational and Mathematical Methods in Medicine
Volume 2013 (2013), Article ID 527654, 10 pages
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/527654
Research Article

Simulation of Intra-Aneurysmal Blood Flow by Different Numerical Methods

Frank Weichert,1 Lars Walczak,1 Denis Fisseler,1 Tobias Opfermann,1 Mudassar Razzaq,2 Raphael Münster,2 Stefan Turek,2 Iris Grunwald,3 Christian Roth,4 Christian Veith,5 and Mathias Wagner5

1Department of Computer Science VII, Dortmund University of Technology, Dortmund, Germany
2Institute of Applied Mathematics, LS III, Dortmund University of Technology, Dortmund, Germany
3Oxford Biomedical Research Centre, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
4Department of Neuroradiology, University of Saarland Medical School, Homburg Saar, Germany
5Department of Pathology, University of Saarland Medical School, Homburg Saar, Germany

Received 21 December 2012; Revised 13 March 2013; Accepted 17 March 2013

Academic Editor: Wenxiang Cong

Copyright © 2013 Frank Weichert et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

The occlusional performance of sole endoluminal stenting of intracranial aneurysms is controversially discussed in the literature. Simulation of blood flow has been studied to shed light on possible causal attributions. The outcome, however, largely depends on the numerical method and various free parameters. The present study is therefore conducted to find ways to define parameters and efficiently explore the huge parameter space with finite element methods (FEMs) and lattice Boltzmann methods (LBMs). The goal is to identify both the impact of different parameters on the results of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and their advantages and disadvantages. CFD is applied to assess flow and aneurysmal vorticity in 2D and 3D models. To assess and compare initial simulation results, simplified 2D and 3D models based on key features of real geometries and medical expert knowledge were used. A result obtained from this analysis indicates that a combined use of the different numerical methods, LBM for fast exploration and FEM for a more in-depth look, may result in a better understanding of blood flow and may also lead to more accurate information about factors that influence conditions for stenting of intracranial aneurysms.