SCSC2003 Abstract S31282
On the modeling and visualization of heart valve closure mechanisms
On the modeling and visualization of heart valve closure mechanisms
Submitting Author: Dr. Sriprakash Sarathy
Abstract:
Understanding the mechanism of heart valve closure is critical to advances in developing a viable and long term artificial substitute for the human heart. Our inability to mimic the function of the organic mechanism of the human heart is largely due to poor understanding of the closure mechanism of membranous valves. While a tremendous amount of research has been conducted in the past on various aspects of heart function, blood flow through the valves, valve geometry and other physical aspects of the heart valve, there has been less success in reproducing the closure mechanism in a laboratory environment. Over the past three decades some success has been achieved in understanding the flow patterns and the actual processes of closure. The presence or absence of regurgitation in the flow at the point of valve closing has generated much debate. Recent work has clearly demonstrated, in a experimental setup, the apparent regurgitation is really a pseudo-regurgitation caused by up
ward movement of the closed valves.
Much of the actual validation of this pseudo-regurgitation has come about due to the greatly improved visual modeling techniques available. This paper details an approach that has been used successfully to detect, identify and validate the heart valve closure mechanism in an in-vivo laboratory setup. This paper covers the design, implementation and use of digital video velocimetry techniques specific to the problem of in-vivo membrane flow.
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