Simulation of blood flow in a soft aneurysm. Upper-left: flow velocity; lower-left: streamlines colored by velocity magnitude; upper-right: areal strain; lower-right: wall shear stress

My current research interests are computational modeling and simulation of blood flow in deformable aneurysms. Despite biological properties, hemodynamic quantities and mechanical properties play a vital role in understanding the initiation, growth and rupture of the aneurysm. In our recent paper in PLoS ONE, we employed a hybrid lattice Boltzmann-finite element-immersed boundary method to investigate the interplay between blood flow and aneurysm deformation. We found that the blood flow and wall shear stress inside the aneurysm are affected by at least two different mechanisms: size and deformability of the aneurysm. Moreover, our simulations revealed that the flow velocity is not a good indicator for the shear stress particularly in pathological cases such as brain aneurysms. Detailed more in the paper and video.