Design principles for software systems analyzing cardiovascular flows
M. Paszynski,
P. Kalita
(

), R. Schaefer
Jagiellonian University, Nawojki 11, 30-072 Kraków, Poland.
Arterial blood flow model may be used for diagnosis of hypertension, cardiac
insufficiency, heart defects, coronary heart disease as well as origin and
progression of arteriosclerosis. We present the designing guideline for
object-oriented software systems of the above type, dealing with the high
computational complexity and complicated data structures. The blood flow was
modeled by Fluid Particle Model (FPM), extended to the case of non-linear
flows. The wall dynamic was described by thin shell equation solved by Finite
Elements (FE). Selected numerical scheme allows splitting of the numerical
part of our system into two conjugated modules (FPM flow and FEM wall modules)
and decreases computational complexity in comparison to the global FEM models.
The core UML project components are the following: Vessel Geometry, Flow
Calculations, Vessel Wall and Boundary Conditions. Object-Oriented
architecture for the simulation software based on the FEM follows the
bottom-up designing principle. The hierarchy of classes is distinguished -
from the base class that expresses the single element through physical
parameters and geometry to the type of FEM interpolation. Simulation results
were consistently compared to medical ultrasound measurements performed on
human arteries.