Arteries and Algorithms: Computational physiological flow and arterial disease modelling
Lead Research Organisation:
Imperial College London
Department Name: Aeronautics
Abstract
Cardiovascular disease, including atherosclerosis, accounts for almost 50% of deaths in the western world. Our understanding of the causes and progression of atherosclerosis is relatively limited and, in many cases, both diagnosis and treatment require invasive patient specific techniques.An enhanced understanding of the physiological factors related to cardiovascular disease would likely to lead to significant advances in treatment as well as increased accuracy in diagnosis and prognosis. Developing this understanding is particularly difficult because of the complexities of the flow in human arterial networks. These are impossible to understand using existing medical data and expertise alone.Recent developments in numerical methods including greater opportunities for wider use of computational simulation and visualisation can provide the necessary link between patient specific imaging data, physics and biology, to provide a platform for this increased understanding. The impact of the use of these techniques could revolutionise medical science and practice in the way imaging modalities such as X-ray, ultrasound and magnetic resonance have done in succession over the past 40 years.The aim of this research initiative is, through close collaboration with vascular biologists, physiologists and surgeons, to develop a simulation environment capable of capturing the multi-scale, hierarchically coupled nature of both physiological and pathological arterial networks. The research programme is focused around three projects, two physiological incorporating the multiscale nature of arterial networks and one numerical: The first project will apply modelling of the three-dimensional fluid dynamics at arterial branches to improve understanding of the causal relationship of blood flow to arterial disease such as atherosclerosis. The second project is directed towards understanding and modelling pulsatile flow wavefoms in patient specific vascular networks using one-dimensional reduced models. The third project focuses on development of advanced mathematical and numerical techniques, such as uncertainty modelling and spectral/hp element methods, to facilitate such modelling.
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
Spencer Sherwin (Principal Investigator) |
Publications
Xiu D
(2007)
Parametric uncertainty analysis of pulse wave propagation in a model of a human arterial network
in Journal of Computational Physics
Waters SL
(2011)
Theoretical models for coronary vascular biomechanics: progress & challenges.
in Progress in biophysics and molecular biology
Vos Peter Edward Julia
(2011)
From h to p efficiently : optimising the implementation of spectral/hp element methods
Vos P
(2011)
A generic framework for time-stepping partial differential equations (PDEs): general linear methods, object-oriented implementation and application to fluid problems
in International Journal of Computational Fluid Dynamics
Vos P
(2008)
A comparison of fictitious domain methods appropriate for spectral/hp element discretisations
in Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering
Vincent PE
(2010)
The effect of the endothelial glycocalyx layer on concentration polarisation of low density lipoprotein in arteries.
in Journal of theoretical biology
Vincent PE
(2011)
Blood flow in the rabbit aortic arch and descending thoracic aorta.
in Journal of the Royal Society, Interface
Vincent PE
(2009)
The effect of a spatially heterogeneous transmural water flux on concentration polarization of low density lipoprotein in arteries.
in Biophysical journal
Vincent P
(2008)
Viscous flow over outflow slits covered by an anisotropic Brinkman medium: A model of flow above interendothelial cell clefts
in Physics of Fluids
Description | There were three key developments of this research: 1) Modelling and application of arterial pulse waves, 2) Modelling and application of complex 3D flow in the aortic arch and 3) Development of advanced computational fluid dynamics methods. 1) Arterial pulse wave modelling: Analogous to the free surface waves, as the heart beats it sends waves down the arterial systems since arteries are elastic. These waves reflect at arterial bifurcations causing different pulsatile wave forms at different locations of the system such as in the carotid (neck) or femoral (leg) arteries which have different patterns. Depending on the how well ther peripheries of the cardiovascular system are operating (for example due to disease) then the features of these waves can have different diagnostic potential. We have developed modelling and analysis techniques of these waves to help aid clinical understanding (see 10.1016/j.jbiomech.2007.05.027, 10.1016/j.jbiomech.2006.07.008, 10.1016/j.earlhumdev.2009.04.001) . The work has been continued by the research, Dr Jordi Alastruey, who is now an academic in the Department of Bioengineering at Kings College London. 2) Complex flow in the aorta: We applied advanced computational methods to study the association of arterial disease such as atherosclerosis with blood flow. The forces the flow exerts on the artery wall is associated with the transport of blood suspensions such as ldl through the wall. We therefore worked closely with physiologists and radiologist to produce both high resolution flow simulations in aortic arches of rabbits (10.1098/rsif.2011.0116) as well as produced localised models of arterial transport (10.1063/1.2938761). These studies have lead us to identify a new flow metric, called transverse wall shear stress, which is showing a promising correlation with the occurrence of arterial disease (PID:24044966) . 3) Advanced Numerical Methods: Underpinning both of the above studies were the development and application of advanced method for computational fluid dynamics know as spectral/hp element methods. Under this project we started the development of an open package, Nektar++, to allow these methods to be adopted by a wider community and make the methods more readily accessible (www.nektar.info, 10.1016/j.jcp.2010.03.031, 10.1080/10618562.2011.575368). |
Exploitation Route | Dr Jordi Alastruey is taking forward the pulse wave modelling at Kings College London Dr Peter Vincent is continuing to develop the 3D modelling as a member of the Aeronautics Department at Imperial College London. We have also had two further PhD projects continuing this work, especially the development of the Transverse Wall Shear stress metric (TransWSS) which is now being adopted by a number of other groups. Finally the tools behind both these studies are being openly made available through the Netkar++ framework www.nektar.info |
Sectors | Healthcare |
URL | http://www.nektar.info |
Description | The reduced pulse wave modelling developed under this grant is now being used to help inform clinical thinking using pulse wave information. One of the researchers, Dr Jordi Alastruey, obtained an academic position and is now working very closely with clinicians at Kings College London using this method. For example he is using it to calculate aortic, left ventricular and pulmonary pressures from non-invasive data as well as calculate aortic stiffness and CO and respiratory rate from catheter based data. Another researcher on this grant, Dr Peter Vincent, has also gone on to start a successful academic career and has continued his work into biomedical modelling working with clinicians at St Marys and Hammersmith hospitals in the area of Arterial Venous grants. They have recently just had a patent accepted on this follow on work. |
First Year Of Impact | 2009 |
Sector | Healthcare |
Impact Types | Societal |
Description | BHF Project Grant |
Amount | £175,030 (GBP) |
Funding ID | PG/08/053/25192 |
Organisation | British Heart Foundation (BHF) |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 09/2008 |
End | 09/2011 |
Description | BHF Project Grant |
Amount | £189,168 (GBP) |
Funding ID | PF/09/088 |
Organisation | British Heart Foundation (BHF) |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 09/2010 |
End | 09/2012 |
Description | BHF Research Excellence Centre |
Amount | £8,900,000 (GBP) |
Funding ID | BHF RE/08/002 |
Organisation | British Heart Foundation (BHF) |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 03/2008 |
End | 03/2013 |
Description | EPSRC: LIbHPC I |
Amount | £483,099 (GBP) |
Funding ID | EP/I030239/1 |
Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 06/2011 |
End | 06/2013 |
Description | EPSRC: LIbHPC II |
Amount | £726,567 (GBP) |
Funding ID | EP/K038788/1 |
Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 06/2013 |
End | 06/2015 |
Description | EPSRC: Streak Instability |
Amount | £353,257 (GBP) |
Funding ID | EP/F045093/1 |
Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 06/2008 |
End | 06/2011 |
Description | RAEng/McLaren Research Chair |
Amount | £200,000 (GBP) |
Organisation | Royal Academy of Engineering |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 09/2012 |
End | 09/2017 |
Title | Nektar++ version 4.0.1 |
Description | Nektar++ is a tensor product based finite element package designed to allow one to construct efficient classical low polynomial order h-type solvers (where h is the size of the finite element) as well as higher p-order piecewise polynomial order solvers. |
Type Of Technology | Software |
Year Produced | 2014 |
Open Source License? | Yes |
Impact | The software is being used by a number of national and international groups and our web site is currently being visited up to 100 times a day according to google analytics |
URL | http://www.nektar.info/downloads/file/nektar-source-tar-gz-2/ |