USING OPENFOAM TO ASSESS THE INFLUENCE OF FLUID-STRUCTURE INTERACTION ON THE FLOW IN INTRACRANIAL ANEURYSMS

Aneurysms are abnormalities formed in some regions of the human vascular system and are characterized by dilated and thin regions of the arterial wall. Causes of aneurysms have been investigated for a long time, and researchers agree that hemodynamic effects, such as wall shear stress, play a key role in the formation, growth, and potential of rupture of brain aneurysms. With the development of better medical imaging techniques, numerical simulation of flows in arteries and aneurysms became more common in the last two decades. However, artery and aneurysm walls were-usually considered rigid, which can be a crude approximation and avoids the analysis of wall related variables, such as wall stresses and deformations. Here we use OpenFOAM-Extend to numerically solve the fluid-structure coupling problem for a set of patient-specific intracranial aneurysms, and analyze the influence of the wall flexibility on the variables that can lead to rupture. In addition, we aim to assess the overall performance of partitioned techniques for dealing with strong coupling between fluid and solid physics.