The MeDiTATe project will be participating in the 9th World Congress of Biomechanics (WCB 2022). The event will be held from 10th to 14th July 2022 at the Taipei International Convention Center (TICC) in Taipei. Four of our Early Stage Researchers will be presenting their work as shown in the following sections.

ESR 09, Martino Andrea Scarpolini: A comparative study between CFD, FSI and radial basis functions mesh morphing technique based on biomedical images for aortic hemodynamic studies. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and fluid structure interaction (FSI) simulations are effective tools used in the literature to study aortic hemodynamics. Nevertheless, these numerical approaches are characterised by some limitations, such as the assumption of a rigid wall for CFD and assumptions on material properties together with high computational times for FSI simulations. Knowledge of the actual material properties of the aortic tissue is crucial for the analysis of different pathologies. In this work we present a new in-vivo method based on biomedical images and the RBF mesh morphing technique to estimate the stiffness of the aorta. A comparison of hemodynamic outcomes between different simulation strategies is shown: CFD, CFD with prescribed wall movement (from CT scans) and two way FSI with the estimated elastic module.

ESR 10, Francesco Bardi: Mechanics and fluid dynamics characterization of a compliant patient specific aortic phantom in a Hybrid Mock Circulatory Loop. Mock Circulatory Loops MCLs are commonly used for in-vitro testing of medical devices, anatomical models, and diagnostic imaging tools. However standard MCLs cannot reproduce complex systems with high accuracy and repeatability, as the uncertainty associated with the calibration of the setup and the parasitic effects become non-negleagible. A Hybrid Mock Circulatory Loop (HMCL) is a Hardware-in-The-Loop system that is used to characterize cardiovascular systems. A numerical-hydraulic interface couples the physical components with a software simulated environment. In this work we show how an HMCL can be effectively used to characterize the fluid dynamic and the mechanical response of a compliant aortic model. Moreover, the obtained experimental data are compared with the results of a Fluid Structure Interaction (FSI) simulation.

ESR 12, Eirini Kardampiki: From CTA to Personalized Reduced Order Model for Modified Blalock Taussig Shunt patients. In this work, a Medical Digital Twin pipeline, based on reduced order modeling, for the fast and interactive evaluation of the hemodynamic parameters for MBTS is presented. Starting from the generation of a 3D digital model of an infant case affected by complete pulmonary atresia, a wide spectrum of MBTS geometries was explored by introducing twelve Radial Basis Functions mesh modifiers. The combination of these modifiers allowed the analysis of various MBTS shapes. Eventually, a ROM was built based on high-fidelity CFD data for the prediction of significant hemodynamic features such as velocity, pressure and wall shear stress in function of the shunt’s morphology in real-time.

ESR 14, Maria Nicole Antonuccio: Color-Doppler ultrasound-based hemodynamics of abdominal aortic aneurysm.  2D Color-Doppler ultrasound (US) imaging can partially capture flow information. Biomechanics principles can augment the missing flow information given by 2D Color-Doppler to quantify AAA hemodynamics for better AAA rupture risk prediction. Examples of hemodynamic characterization, based on the reconstruction of the velocity vector field in a AAA using Color-Doppler images, are presented in the study with the final aim of complementing the AAA diagnosis and supporting therapy planning and optimization.