This novel approach allows for the first time a patient-specific LV blood flow simulation using exact boundary conditions. A full-screen browser window is recommended. The first set of images shows a visualization of the blood flow in three frames of a half cardiac cycle. A small number of points was seeded across a plane perpendicular to the long axis and integrated in both time directions with the velocity field. The lines indicate the paths of the points, and the cones indicate the direction of motion.
Speed is indicated by color.
The left image is at end diastole, as the LV starts to contract. We see that the velocity shows a strong outflow pattern to the center of the base. Flow along the walls is toward the apex, which is consistent with the contraction of the walls. The center image is midway through systole, and we see the outflow pattern beginning to diminish as the LV approaches full contraction. The shorter lines indicate reduced speed as the flow begins to change direction.