Increasing curved leaflet curvature in aortic BMHV improves flow uniformity, decreases average wall shear stress, but increases oscillatory shear index, impacting hemodynamics.
How do different leaflet curvatures affect the hemodynamic characteristics of bileaflet mechanical heart valves in a computational aortic root model?
Computational simulations demonstrate that modifying the leaflet curvature of bileaflet mechanical heart valves significantly impacts hemodynamic parameters, suggesting a pathway to optimize valve design and potentially reduce postoperative complications.
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Bileaflet mechanical heart valves (BMHV) are clinically used to replace diseased heart valves. This study models the aortic root structure using medical imaging data and employs numerical simulations to analyse the hemodynamic characteristics of BMHV with different leaflet curvatures under pulsatile flow. Simulation results show that curved leaflets - by increasing the middle jet orifice area - improve the uniformity of three-jet flow distribution. Increasing leaflet curvature makes curved leaflets induce rotational fluid motion on their surface, causing more chaotic downstream vortex distributions but gradually reducing vortex intensity. With higher leaflet curvature, time-averaged wall shear stress (TAWSS) decreases, while oscillatory shear index (OSI) tends to increase in the ascending aorta. Regions with low wall shear stress (WSS) and high OSI usually have higher relative residence time (RRT), and transverse oscillatory shear index (OSItr) also decreases with increasing leaflet curvature. Thus, optimising mechanical valve leaflet design to improve hemodynamic performance can reduce postoperative complications.
Zhang et al. (Thu,) reported a other. Increasing curved leaflet curvature in aortic BMHV improves flow uniformity, decreases average wall shear stress, but increases oscillatory shear index, impacting hemodynamics.