Study of estimation method for unsteady inflow velocity in two-dimensional ultrasonic-measurement-integrated blood flow simulation

Information on hemodynamics is essential for elucidation of mechanisms and development of novel diagnostic methods for circulatory diseases. Two-dimensional ultrasonic-measurement-integrated (2D-UMI) simulation can correctly reproduce an intravascular blood flow field and hemodynamics by feeding back an ultrasonic measurement to the numerical blood flow simulation. In this method, it is critically important to give the correct cross-sectional average inflow velocity (inflow velocity) as the boundary condition. However, systematic study has not been done on the relative validity and effectiveness of existing inflow velocity estimation methods for various target flow fields. The aim of this study was to examine the existing methods systematically and to establish a method to accurately estimate inflow velocities for various vessel geometries and flow conditions in 2D-UMI simulations. A numerical experiment was performed for 2D-UMI simulation of blood flow models in a straight vessel with inflow velocity profiles symmetric and asymmetric to the vessel axis using existing evaluation functions based on Doppler velocity error for the inflow velocity estimation. As a result, it was clarified that a significantly large estimation error occurs in the asymmetric flow due to a nonfeedback domain near the downstream end of the calculation domain. Hence, a new inflow velocity estimation method of 2D-UMI simulation is proposed in which the feedback and evaluation domains are extended to the downstream end. Further numerical experiments of 2D-UMI simulation for two realistic vessel geometries of a healthy blood vessel and a stenosed one confirmed the effectiveness of the proposed method.