In-vivo Experimental and Numerical Studies of Cardiac Flow in Right Atrium

The experimental and computational modes of determining cardiac flow are presented. In a computational fluid dynamics study, we attempt to simulate the physiological environment and flow conditions accurately in the right atrium. During the initial stage, we performed magnetic resonance imaging at multiple slices for chamber reconstruction and mesh refinements. A transient-state numerical simulation based on physiological data is developed. For our experimental approach, phase contrast magnetic resonance imaging of a selected slice of the heart is used to measure velocity of blood within the heart chamber in-vivo. This imaging technique can provide velocity maps to compare with the simulated flow. The velocity maps by the two methods are post-processed to generate vorticity maps for evaluation. Both experimental and computational results present the flow pattern of right atrial vortices with good agreement.