Convergence of Phase-Averaged, Transitional Flow in an Abdominal Aortic Aneurysmal Model

Abstract

Abdominal aortic aneurysm can exhibit transitional flow characteristics in laminar flow regimes. To report transitional flow characteristics, we examined the convergence of phase-averaged solutions by executing blood flow simulations of a patient-specific abdominal aortic aneurysmal model for 257 cardiac cycles with periodic, pulsatile boundary conditions. The phase-averaged solutions were computed by averaging the solutions over various numbers of cardiac cycles and compared against the ones averaged over 124 cycles. The phase-averaged solutions reported small differences when they were averaged over a large number of cardiac cycles. The instantaneous solutions, however, failed to exhibit fluctuations reported in the phase-averaged solutions. To study transitional blood flows in the aneurysmal region, we need to report phase-averaged solutions as they exhibit nonperiodic, disturbed flow characteristics. Additionally, when reporting phase-averaged solutions, it is preferred to compute an average over a large number of cardiac cycles to be able to represent flow structures of the converged phase-averaged solutions.