openBF: an open-source finite volume 1D blood flow solver

Computational simulations are widely adopted in cardiovascular biomechanics because of their capability of producing physiological data otherwise impossible to measure with non-invasive modalities.<i>Objective.</i>This study presents openBF, a computational library for simulating the blood dynamics in the cardiovascular system.<i>Approach.</i>openBF adopts a one-dimensional viscoelastic representation of the arterial system, and is coupled with zero-dimensional windkessel models at the outlets. Equations are solved by means of the finite-volume method and the code is written in Julia. We assess its predictions by performing a multiscale validation study on several domains available from the literature.<i>Main results.</i>At all scales, which range from individual arteries to a population of virtual subjects, openBF's solution show excellent agreement with the solutions from existing software. For reported simulations, openBF requires low computational times.<i>Significance.</i>openBF is easy to install, use, and deploy on multiple platforms and architectures, and gives accurate prediction of blood dynamics in short time-frames. It is actively maintained and available open-source on GitHub, which favours contributions from the biomechanical community.