Modeling Fluid Dynamics of Y-shaped Connector : For application towards aortic arch surgery with selective antegrade cerebral perfusion

Selective antegrade cerebral perfusion (SACP) using a heart-lung machine and a Y-shapedconnector tube is one protective strategy used to maintain blood flow to the brain duringaortic arch surgery. To enable patient-specific predictions of intraoperative blood flow dur-ing SACP, the flow dynamics of the Y-connector must be characterized. This thesis presentsa combined experimental and numerical investigation of the Y-connector, with the objec-tive of developing a validated numerical model that can be incorporated into vascular treesimulations through flow resistance-based boundary conditions. The model ability to pre-dict pressure difference between the perfusion sites was evaluated using intraoperative datafrom 15 patients, achieving an average model error of 0.07 ± 3.36 mmHg. Numericallyderived expressions of the connector resistance in the right branch was incorporated intopatient-specific vascular tree simulations, yielding no substantial change in errors comparedto previous simulations without the connector incorporated. This work has improved theunderstanding of how the flow from the heart-lung machine is affected by the Y-connector.This study lays the groundwork for identifying remaining sources of error in patient-specificsimulations, which may likely stem from assumptions in the vascular tree models or limi-tations in intraoperative measurements.