Meshless Simulation with the Material Point Method: A Micropump for Nerve Injury Treatment

A meshless method is used to simulate the Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) in a micropump intended to treat nerve injury. Conventional meshbased methods can suffer from mesh deformation and quality issues, and find it difficult to track the fluid-structure interface. The Material Point Method (MPM) combines Lagrangian material points with an Eulerian computational grid, thereby avoiding any mesh related problems. To simulate the valve dynamics in the micropump, MPM was used to analyze the effect of the valve length on the behaviour of the pump. A longer valve length takes longer to open, as it sticks to the valve seat, meaning the pump needs to generate more pressure to open the valve. This contribution shows that MPM simulations can be used to optimize the valve design for implantable micropumps.