Asymmetric radial expansion and contraction of rat carotid artery observed using a high-resolution ultrasound imaging system

The geometry of carotid artery bifurcation is of high clinical interest because it determines the characteristics of blood flow that is closely related to the formation and development of atherosclerotic plaque. However, information on the dynamic changes in the vessel wall of carotid artery bifurcation during a pulsatile cycle is limited. This pilot study investigated the cyclic changes in carotid artery geometry caused by blood flow pulsation in rats. A high-resolution ultrasound imaging system with a broadband scanhead centered at 40 MHz was used to obtain longitudinal images of the rat carotid artery. A high frame rate retrospective B-scan imaging technique based on the use of electrocardiogram to trigger signal acquisition was used to examine precisely the fast arterial wall motion. Two-dimensional geometry data obtained from nine rats showed that the rat carotid artery asymmetrically contracts and dilates during each cardiac cycle. Systolic/diastolic vessel diameters near the upstream and downstream regions from the bifurcation were 0.976 ± 0.011/0.825 ± 0.015 mm and 0.766 ± 0.015/0.650 ± 0.016 mm, respectively. Their posterior/anterior wall displacement ratios in the radial direction were 41.0 ± 14.9% and 2.9 ± 1.6%, respectively. These results indicate that in the vicinity of bifurcation, the carotid artery favorably expands to the anterior side during the systolic phase. This phenomenon was observed to be more prominent in the downstream region near the bifurcation. The cyclic variation pattern in wall movement varies depending on the measurement site, which shows different patterns at far upstream and downstream of the bifurcation. The asymmetric radial expansion and contraction of the rat carotid artery observed in this study may be useful in studying the hemodynamic etiology of cardiovascular diseases because the pulsatile changes in vessel geometry may affect the local hemodynamics that determines the spatial distribution of wall shear stress, one of important cardiovascular risk factors. Further systematic study is needed to clarify the effects of wall elasticity, branch angle and vessel diameter ratio on the asymmetric wall motion of carotid artery bifurcation.     

Visualizing shear stress in Görtler vortex flow

Shear stress distributions were obtained from velocity measurements in a concave surface boundary layer flow in the presence of Görtler vortices by means of a single hot-wire probe for several streamwise (x) locations. A set of vertical wires of 0.20 mm diameter were positioned at a distance of 10 mm upstream from the leading edge of a concave surface of radius of curvature R=1.0 m to pre-set the wavelength of the vortices so to obtain the most amplified wavelength Görtler vortices. Consequently, the wavelength of the vortices was set equal to the wire spacing and preserved downstream. In addition to the high shear regions near the wall, one positive peak at the head of the mushroom-like structures and two relatively weak negative peaks at the vicinity of the low-speed streaks are found in the iso-?u/?y contours. They are believed to be related to the formation of the inflectional point in the velocity profile across boundary layer. The occurrence of the inflection points in the spanwise distributions of streamwise velocity component u is associated with the appearance of the second peak of the ?u/?z shear near the boundary layer edge. The nonlinear effect of Görtler instability is to increase the wall shear stress, and further enhancement beyond the turbulent values is due to the presence of secondary instability.     

Flow measurements below 50 mum: NMR microscopy experiments in lithographic model pore spaces

Quasi two-dimensional random site percolation model objects have been prepared using a synchrotron radiation lithography technique with a spatial resolution better than 50 microm and an aspect ratio of up to 17. Flow of water through the pore space was studied with the aid of an NMR velocity mapping method and compared with a computational fluid dynamics simulation. In order to be able to measure and map widely distributed flow velocities with microscopic resolution (typically 40 x 40 microm), an experimental protocol that permits one to cover an effectively very wide velocity field of view (0.6-10 mm/s) had to be developed.     

DENSE: displacement encoding with stimulated echoes in cardiac functional MRI

Displacement encoding with stimulated echoes (DENSE) was developed for high-resolution myocardial displacement mapping. Pixel phase is modulated by myocardial displacement and data spatial resolution is limited only by pixel size. 2D displacement vector maps were generated for the systolic action in canines with 0.94 x 1.9 mm nominal in-plane resolution and 2.3 mm/pi displacement encoding. A radial strain of 0.208 was measured across the free left ventricular wall over 105 ms during systole. DENSE displacement maps require small first-order gradient moments for encoding. DENSE magnitude images exhibit black-blood contrast which allows for better myocardial definition and reduced motion-related artifacts.     

The hemodynamic study of the cerebral artery using numerical simulations based on medical imaging data

The paper aims to investigate effects of blood vessel geometry on hemodynamics of the cerebral artery, particularly the internal carotid artery using computer graphics. The medical statistics show that generation and rupture of the cerebral aneurysms is strongly correlated with the wall shear stress and flow patterns in the blood vessel. In order to provide better understanding of phenomena, the paper presents the numerical analysis system, which consists of pre-processing, simulation and postprocessing. In the pre-processing, the medical imaging data, mainly CT (Computerized Tomographic) angiography, are used to construct the three-dimensional geometry of the artery. Various simulations are carried out varying curvature or location of bifurcation, and the results are visualized to investigate geometry effect.     

Lattice Boltzmann method simulating hemodynamics in the three-dimensional stenosed and recanalized human carotid bifurcations

By using the lattice Boltzmann method(LBM)pulsatile blood flows were simulated in three-dimensional moderate stenosed and recanalized carotid bifurcations to understand local hemodynamics and its relevance in arterial atherosclerosis formation and progression.The helical flow patterns,secondary flow and wall dynamical pressure spatiotemporal distributions were investigated,which leads to the disturbed shear forces in the carotid artery bifurcations.The wall shear stress distributions indicated by time-averaged wall shear stress(TAWSS),oscillatory shear index(OSI),and the relative residence time(RRT)in a cardiac cycle revealed the regions where atherosclerotic plaques are prone to form,extend or rupture.This study also illustrates the point that locally disturbed flow may be considered as an indicator for early atherosclerosis diagnosis.Additionally the present work demonstrates the robust and highly efficient advantages of the LBM for the hemodynamics study of the human blood vessel system.     

The effect of Lagrangian chaos on locking bifurcations in shear flows

The effect of an externally imposed perturbation on an unstable or weakly stable shear flow is investigated, with a focus on the role of Lagrangian chaos in the bifurcations that occur. The external perturbation is at rest in the laboratory frame and can form a chain of resonances or cat's eyes where the initial velocity v(x0)(y) vanishes. If in addition the shear profile is unstable or weakly stable to a Kelvin-Helmholtz instability, for a certain amplitude of the external perturbation there can be an unlocking bifurcation to a nonlinear wave resonant around a different value of y, with nonzero phase velocity. The interaction of the propagating nonlinear wave with the external perturbation leads to Lagrangian chaos. We discuss results based on numerical simulations for different amplitudes of the external perturbation. The response to the external perturbation is strong, apparently because of non-normality of the linear operator, and the unlocking bifurcation is hysteretic. The results indicate that the observed Lagrangian chaos is responsible for a second bifurcation occurring at larger external perturbation, locking the wave to the wall. This bifurcation is nonhysteretic. The mechanism by which the chaos leads to locking in this second bifurcation is by means of chaotic advective transport of momentum from one chain of resonances to the other (Reynolds stress) and momentum transport to the vicinity of the wall via chaotic scattering. These results suggest that locking of waves in rotating tank experiments in the presence of two unstable modes is due to a similar process. (c) 2002 American Institute of Physics.     

The scaling of the wall pressure fluctuations in polymer-modified turbulent boundary layer flow

Wall pressure fluctuations and integrated skin friction were measured beneath a turbulent boundary layer that was modified by adding drag-reducing polymer to the pure water flow. The measurements were performed on an axisymmetric model, equipped with an isolated cylindrical drag balance section, and placed in the test section of the 0.3048-m-diam water tunnel at ARL Penn State. Data were acquired at a free-stream velocity of 10.7 m/s with pure water and with polymer added to the water at concentrations of 1, 5, 10, and 20 weight parts per million. Nondimensionalization of the wall pressure fluctuation frequency spectra with traditional outer, inner, and mixed flow variables failed to adequately collapse the data. The mean square wall pressure fluctuations were found to scale linearly with the wall shear stress. Polymer addition had little effect on the characteristic time scale of the flow. These properties were used to develop a novel form of the nondimensional wall pressure fluctuation spectrum that provided the best collapse of the measured data.     

脂肪颗粒在颈动脉中的运动及其对血液动力学的影响

很多研究表明, 动脉粥样硬化通常发生在具有复杂血液动力学的区域, 比如分叉动脉和弯曲动脉. 这些地方常伴随有低壁面剪切力或震荡壁面剪切力, 这是动脉粥样硬化形成的一大诱因. 使用计算流体力学软件对2D颈动脉分叉血管进行了模拟, 研究了脂肪颗粒在颈动脉中的运动及其对血液动力学的影响. 研究表明: 1)血管狭窄对于脂肪颗粒的运动有重要影响, 同时也影响栓塞的形成; 2)脂肪颗粒可能会黏附在血管壁面, 但由于血流的冲击作用, 脂肪颗粒会随后在壁面略微铺展; 3)颈动脉狭窄区域后方是下一个血栓的可能生长位点; 4)当栓塞形成时, 速度和壁面剪切力分布将变得复杂多变, 这对于血管是有害的.     

A novel ultrasound instrument for investigation of arterial mechanics

The study of arterial mechanics concerns functional characteristics depending on wall elasticity and flow profile. Wall elasticity can be investigated through the estimation of parameters like the arterial distensibility, which is of high clinical interest because of its known correlation not only with the advanced atherosclerotic disease, but also with aging and major risk factors for cardiovascular disease. The flow velocity profile is also clinically relevant, because it modulates endothelial function and can be responsible for the development and distribution of atherosclerotic plaques. A clinically relevant variable extracted from the blood velocity profile is the wall shear rate (WSR), which represents the spatial velocity gradient near the vessel wall. This paper describes an integrated ultrasound system, capable of detecting both the velocity profile and the wall movements in human arteries. It basically consists of a PC add-on board including a single high-speed digital signal processor. This is dedicated to the analysis of echo-signals backscattered from 128 range cells located along the axis of the interrogating ultrasound (US) beam. Echoes generated from the walls (characterized by high amplitudes and low Doppler frequencies) and from red blood cells (characterized by low amplitudes and relatively high Doppler frequencies) are independently processed in real-time. Wall velocity is detected through the autocorrelation algorithm, while blood velocity is investigated through a complete spectral analysis of all signals backscattered by erythrocytes and WSR is extracted from the estimated velocity profile. Preliminary applications of the new system, including the simultaneous analysis of blood flow and arterial wall movement in healthy volunteers and in a diseased patient, are discussed, and first results are presented.     

Nonlinear dynamics of an interface between shear bands

We study numerically the nonlinear dynamics of a shear banding interface in two-dimensional planar shear flow, within the nonlocal Johnson-Segalman model. Consistent with a recent linear stability analysis, we find that an initially flat interface is unstable with respect to small undulations for a sufficiently small ratio of the interfacial width l to cell length L(x). The instability saturates in finite amplitude interfacial fluctuations. For decreasing l/L(x) these undergo a nonequilibrium transition from simple traveling interfacial waves with constant average wall stress, to periodically rippling waves with a periodic stress response. When multiple shear bands are present we find erratic interfacial dynamics and a stress response suggesting low dimensional chaos.     

Shear flows and shear viscosity in a two-dimensional Yukawa system (dusty plasma)

The shear viscosity of a two-dimensional liquid-state dusty plasma was measured experimentally. A monolayer of highly charged polymer microspheres, with a Yukawa interaction, was suspended in a plasma sheath. Two counterpropagating Ar+ laser beams pushed the particles, causing shear-induced melting of the monolayer and a shear flow in a planar Couette configuration. By fitting the particle velocity profiles in the shear flow to a Navier-Stokes model, the kinematic viscosity was calculated; it was of order 1 mm(2) s(-1), depending on the monolayer's parameters and shear stress applied.     

基于光纤光栅传感器的体外血管模型应力测量北大核心CSCD

血管中的血液流动会对血管壁产生周向应力,周向应力与血管的结构及功能变化密切相关,测量体外血管模型的周向应力是生物力学研究中较重要的问题。提出了利用光纤光栅测量血管周向应力的方法,基于微流控技术利用钢针模具建立了集成光纤光栅的三维圆形血管模型,通过仿真研究了不同流动速度与应力的关系。仿真结果得到流速在8 mm/s~75 mm/s范围内,应力随速度的改变呈线性变化。利用光纤光栅传感器测量了流体流动时产生的周向应力,根据实验得到了光栅波长改变量与速度的关系,流速范围在8 mm/s~75 mm/s之间变化时,速度引起波长的变化为0.173 nm。结合仿真实验得到了应力与光栅波长改变量的关系,为血液流动时产生周向应力的体外测量提供了新思路。     

Observation of vortex packets in direct numerical simulation of fully turbulent channel flow

A number of experimental studies have inferred the existence of packets of inclined, hairpinlike vortices in wall turbulence on the basis of observations made in two-dimensional x−y planes using visualization and particle image velocimetry (PIV). However, there are very few observations of hairpins in existing three-dimensional studies made using direct numerical simulation (DNS), and no such study claims to have revealed packets. We demonstrate, for the first time, the existence of hairpin vortex packets in DNS of turbulent flow. The vortex packet structure found in the present study at low Reynolds number,Re _t=300, is consistent with and substantiates the observations and the results from twodimensional PIV measurements at higher Reynolds numbers in channel, pipe and boundary layer flows. Thus, the evidence supports the view that vortex packets are a universal feature of wall turbulence, independent of effects due to boundary layer trips or critical conditions in the aforementioned numerical studies. Visualization of the DNS velocity field and vortices also shows the close association of hairpin packets with long low-momentum streaks and the regions of high Reynolds shear stress.     

膀胱充盈的三维电阻抗成像算法

构建膀胱充盈估计的物理及数学三维电阻抗成像计算模型,利用混合正则化Combined Tikhonov重构算法加以验证,其结果有较高的空间分辨率,稳定性更高,抗噪性能增强.通过对结果的Laplacian函数分析,采用数学方法进行边界单元提取,处理,整合边界曲面片段等,从高噪声背景中提取对象的形态特征,最终实现三维图像重构.在二维成像的基础上,提供了目标空间位置、高度和空间对比度等信息,为定性分析提供重要依据.     

Hydrodynamics of slip wedge and optimization of surface slip property

The hydrodynamic load support generated by a slip wedge of a slider bearing was studied. The surface slip property was optimized so that a maximum hydrodynamic load support could be obtained. A multi-linearity method was given for the slip control equation of two-dimensional (2-D) wall slip. We investigated 2-D wall slip and the hydrodynamics of a finite length bearing with any values of the surface limiting shear stress. It was found that the hydrodynamic effect of the slip wedge is greater than the traditional geometrical convergent-wedge. Even though the geo- metrical gap is a parallel or divergent sliding gap, the slip wedge still gives rise to a very big hydrodynamic pressure. The optimized slip wedge can give rise to a hy- drodynamic load support as high as 2.5 times of what the geometrical conver- gent-wedge can produce. Wall slip usually gives a small surface friction.     

Optimised in vivo visualisation of cortical structures in the human brain at 3 T using IR-TSE

The primary visual cortex in humans can be identified using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in vivo by detection of the stria of Gennari. To fully characterize this area, high spatial resolution is essential, including the use of very thin image slices to avoid loss of definition due to partial volume effects. A three-dimensional magnetization-prepared turbo spin-echo sequence, with appropriate parameter optimization, provided high-resolution imaging (0.4 x 0.4 x 0.5 mm3) on a clinical 3-T scanner with adequate contrast to noise ratio. These images allowed visualisation of the stria of Gennari in every slice of a volume covering most of the occipital cortex, in each of six healthy volunteers. The effective longitudinal relaxation time was measured with the isotropic resolution turbo spin echo sequence and found to be substantially shorter than values measured with a dedicated relaxometric sequence. The shortening was attributed to magnetization transfer effects, as supported by the investigation of its slab and turbo-factor dependence.     

Automated measurement and classification of pulmonary blood-flow velocity patterns using phase-contrast MRI and correlation analysis

An automated method was evaluated to detect blood flow in small pulmonary arteries and classify each as artery or vein, based on a temporal correlation analysis of their blood-flow velocity patterns. The method was evaluated using velocity-sensitive phase-contrast magnetic resonance data collected in vitro with a pulsatile flow phantom and in vivo in 11 human volunteers. The accuracy of the method was validated in vitro, which showed relative velocity errors of 12% at low spatial resolution (four voxels per diameter), but was reduced to 5% at increased spatial resolution (16 voxels per diameter). The performance of the method was evaluated in vivo according to its reproducibility and agreement with manual velocity measurements by an experienced radiologist. In all volunteers, the correlation analysis was able to detect and segment peripheral pulmonary vessels and distinguish arterial from venous velocity patterns. The intrasubject variability of repeated measurements was approximately 10% of peak velocity, or 2.8 cm/s root-mean-variance, demonstrating the high reproducibility of the method. Excellent agreement was obtained between the correlation analysis and radiologist measurements of pulmonary velocities, with a correlation of R2=0.98 (P<.001) and a slope of 0.99+/-0.01.     

Vessel contrast at three Tesla in time-of-flight magnetic resonance angiography of the intracranial and carotid arteries

The effects of the increased field strength of 3T on blood vessel contrast in three-dimensional time-of-flight (TOF) MR angiography (MRA) of the intracranial and carotid arteries was evaluated. Bloch equation simulations based on measured longitudinal relaxation times suggested superior blood-to-background contrast might be expected at 3T over 1.5T when using typical 3D TOF MRA parameters. A 15-volunteer study found that 3T was preferable over 1.5T for visualising distal intracranial vessels and the carotid arteries, by providing superior background suppression and excellent fat suppression. The combination of improved background suppression and improved signal-to-noise at 3T, enabled high resolution intracranial 3D TOF MRA with voxel volumes as small as 0.14 mm(3) to be acquired.     

Quantitation of normal canine hippocampus formation volume: Correlation of MRI with gross histology

The hippocampal formation possesses an important role in the development and maintenance of short-term memory. In this study, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and gross histology were used to quantify the volume of the hippocampal formation in canines. High resolution MRI, using 1 mm thick slices and an intraplanar resolution of 0.35 mm was performed at 2.0 T both in vivo and in vitro following in situ fixation. The volumes of the hippocampal formations were determined from MR images and compared to those obtained from one mm thick gross histologic sections. The average volume of the canine hippocampal formation, measured from in vivo and in vitro MR images was 476.0 ± 79.5 and 467.3 ± 53.7 mm³, respectively. Determined from gross histology, the volume of the hippocampal formation was 463.6 ± 24.1 mm³. Quantitation of the canine hippocampal formation using in vivo MRI showed good correlation with in vitro MRI and histology, verifying the reliability and reproducibility of in vivo MRI measurements. High resolution MRI using 1 mm thick slices through the whole canine hippocampal formation is necessary for accurate volume determination of a structure of this size.