The purpose of this PhD project is to develop patient specific fluid-structure interaction simulation models of the human heart to investigate the biomechanics in the healthy heart and the alternations
seen in cardiac diseases.
The models will primarily be based on medical imaging (cardiac CT) from healthy subjects as well as subjects with known cardiac diseases. This can yield a full model of the heart which enables
visualization and quantification of the interplay between the heart muscles and blood flow inside the heart. In addition the modelling results are well suited for developing new diagnostic procedures
in cardiac ultrasound and validate advanced 3D ultrasound estimation algorithms.
This will provide faster and better diagnosis of patients with cardiac diseases.
Fluid-structure iteraction (FSI) models are chosen because they can be used to investigate the complex interaction between fluids and solids in the human heart which is not yet fully understood.
A proper FSI model requires a mathematical description of the interaction between the blood flow domain and the surrounding solid, i.e. the cardiac muscle tissue.
To provide such a description, knowledge about the blood flow properties and heart muscle dynamics must be obtained.
This project aims to solidify what is needed as model input and to propose a pipeline to a patient specific FSI model from CT imaging and ultrasound.