ARUP; ISBN: 978-0-9562121-5-3 - CMBBE 2012 - Cardiff University

4. RESULTS
4.2 Surface and solid mesh reconstruction
A full tetrahedral mesh of the tail network was obtained with around 81 million of
elements and 19 million of nodes and a limb vascular mesh with around 16 million of
elements and 4 million of nodes without loss of volume of structures futures.
4.3 CFD Analysis
4.3.1 Flow distribution
The highest velocity is 3 times higher than the inlet velocity in both vascular networks.
Velocity values inside the vessels range from 1 to 3 m.s-1 (Fig. 1). The velocity profile
of tail and limb networks shows a distribution of fluid flow in different planes. The
velocity is higher inside the small capillaries than the larger ones (Fig. 1a). It is
calculated that in some vessels the fluid velocity equals to zero, mainly in the small
lateral vessels in the limb network (Fig. 1b). There is also a high heterogeneity of fluid
flow distribution in the vessels in both networks (Fig. 1).
a) b)
Figure 1: Contours of velocity magnitude (m. s -1 ) for the a) tail vascular network, and the b)
limb vascular network.
Fig. 2 shows the percentage volume versus the velocity magnitude of each vascular
network. It was observe a higher percentage of the network with a velocity close to zero
in the limb (around 78%) followed by the tail (47%) and then by the tails sub volume
(40%). The rest of the vascular networks have a heterogeneity distribution of the fluid
velocity (between 0.3 and 3mm s -1 ) inside their vessels, with a small percentage
(between 2-4%) above 3mm s -1 (three times the velocity inlet).
Figure 2: Percentage volumes versus velocity magnitude of each vascular network.