Key result
In an in vitro model of a healthy ascending aorta, increasing stroke volumes led to higher levels of turbulence, with maximum turbulent kinetic energy occurring in the bulk region.
In vitro modeling of the ascending aorta demonstrates that turbulence and velocity fluctuations peak near systole and increase with higher stroke volumes.
Turbulence rises with stroke volume in healthy aortic models; leaves open in vivo relevance and clinical translation.
This study aims to investigate turbulence inside a model of the human ascending aorta as a function of the main flow control parameters. For this purpose, we performed a two-dimensional in vitro investigation of the pulsatile flow inside a laboratory model of a healthy aorta by varying both the Reynolds and Womersley numbers. Our findings indicate that the velocity fluctuations become significant particularly during the deceleration phase of the flow, reach the maximum near the systolic peak and then decay during the rest of the diastole phase. Higher levels of turbulence were recovered for increasing Stroke Volumes, in particular maxima of Turbulent Kinetic Energy occurred in the bulk region while higher values of Reynolds shear stresses were found in correspondence of the sinus of Valsalva.
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Fortini et al. (2015) studied this question. Varying Reynolds and Womersley numbers (Stroke Volumes) was evaluated on Turbulence (velocity fluctuations, Turbulent Kinetic Energy, Reynolds shear stresses). In an in vitro model of a healthy ascending aorta, increasing stroke volumes led to higher levels of turbulence, with maximum turbulent kinetic energy occurring in the bulk region.
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