Affiliations: Universite d'Avignon, UMR CSE,
INRA-Université Avignon, Avignon, 84000, France. E-mail:
[email protected] | Universite Aix Marseille II, UMR 6594, Equipe
Biomecanique Cardiovasculaire, Marseille, 13013, France
Abstract: In vitro experiments are often unable to reproduce all the
complexities of biological flows observed in vivo. The in vitro models are
often rigid, use Newtonian fluids, and/or some ideal geometry tested under
ideal physiological parameters. The study presented in this article describes
the in vitro assessment of mitral prosthetic heart valves in a setup able to
simulate the pulsatile blood flow in a model of the left heart with moving
walls. The specific laboratory mockup built for these experiments consists in a
Dual Activation Simulator (DAS) that provides a realistic simulation of the
atrial and ventricular flow in anatomically shaped silicone models cavities.
This mockup, initially designed for ultrasonic velocity measurements took
recently advantage of the use of particle image velocimetry. We present here
some aspects of flow visualization and phase averaged two-dimensional PIV
measurements which can provide new insight in the interaction between the flow
dynamics and the heart valves.