Predictions of Thrombus Formation Using Lattice Boltzmann Method

This paper describes the prediction of index of thrombus formation in shear blood flow by computational fluid dynamics (CFD) with Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM), applying to orifice-pipe blood flow and flow around a cylinder, which is simple model of turbulent shear stress in the high speed rotary blood pumps and complicated geometry of medical fluid machines. The results of the flow field in the orifice-pipe flow using LBM are compared with experimental data and those using finite difference method, and it is found that the reattachment length of the backward facing step flow is predicted as precise as that the experiment and the finite difference method. As for thrombus formation, from the computational data of flow around the cylinder in the channel, the thrombus formation (thickness) is estimated using (1) shear rate and adhesion force (effective distance) to the wall independently, and (2) shear rate function with adhesion force (effective distance), and it is found that the prediction method using shear rate function with adhesion force is more accurate than the method using the former one.