Affiliations: Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemical Technology, Imperial College, London, UK | Department of Medical Physics, University of Edinburgh, Western General Hospital, UK
Note: [] Address for correspondence: Dr. Quan Long, Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemical Technology, Imperial College, Prince Consort Road, London SW7 2BY, UK. Tel.: +44 207 589 5111, ext. 55620; Fax: +44 207 594 5604; E‐mail: q.long@ic.ac.uk.
Abstract: Steady flow of a blood mimicking fluid in a physiologically realistic model of the human carotid bifurcation was studied using both magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modelling techniques. Quantitative comparisons of the 3D velocity field in the bifurcation phantom were made between phase contrast MRI measurements and CFD predictions. The geometry for the CFD model was reconstructed from T1 weighted MR imaging of the test phantom. It was found that the predicted velocity fields were in fair agreement with MR measured velocities. In both the internal and external carotid arteries, the agreement between CFD predictions and MRI measurements was better along the inner–outer wall axis with a correlation factor C>0.897 (average 0.939) where the velocity profiles were skewed, than along the anterior–posterior axis (average correlation factor 0.876) where the velocity profiles were in M‐shape.
Keywords: Carotid bifurcation, magnetic resonance imaging, computational fluid dynamics, quantitative comparison, velocity field
Journal: Biorheology, vol. 39, no. 3-4, pp. 467-474, 2002
