COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS STUDY ON LIVER TRANSPLANTATION ANASTOMOSIS

Few research results have looked at the hepatic artery anastomosis through the lens of computational fluid dynamics (CFD). This study examines the hepatic artery anastomosis, specifically considering three cases with different geometric properties (e.g., diameters) of the actual anastomosis as well as the afferent and efferent arteries. For normal hepatic pulsatile flows, a Carreau model for blood rheology is implemented. A commercial CFD program (i.e., ANSYS Fluent) suitable for complex geometries, is used to provide solutions for turbulent and unsteady laminar flow. Five blood flow pulses are used to acquire the fluid flow fields and the related stressess. Previous literature studies have associated thrombosis and atherosclerosis with two variables: i) Wall shear stress; and ii) Blood velocity. From the obtained CFD results and regarding the stagnant flow the simulations revealed that Case 3 is the most prone to thrombosis and Case 1 is the least prone to thrombosis. Furthermore, regarding the wall shear stress, all the simulations showed areas with low wall shear stress (i.e., 1 Pa). In addition, wall shear stress 7 Pa was observed in all three cases in the afferent artery and also in Case 1 in the efferent artery. Finally, taking into consideration the wall shear stress, Case 2 has the largest area between the healthy range 1-7 Pa.