Fig 1.
Visualization of the aortic arch.
(a) MRI scan showing the anatomical structure of the aortic arch. Adapted from Baz et al. [16]. (b) Schematic representation of the aortic arch highlighting key anatomical branches. Adapted from Natiq et al. [17].
Fig 2.
Unstructured tetrahedral mesh of the aortic arch.
Enlarged views on the left highlight local mesh refinement at a supra-aortic branch junction, while the view on the right illustrates near-wall resolution at the inlet.
Table 1.
Grid independence study showing the average velocity at four outlets and WSS under increasing mesh resolutions.
Table 2.
Time-step sensitivity analysis for a maximum mesh size of . The total simulation time was maintained at approximately
across six different time step sizes.
Table 3.
Rheological parameters used in the Carreau–Yasuda model to represent blood conditions, adapted from [7,23]. These values capture the shear-thinning behavior of blood under different physiological states.
Fig 3.
Variation of effective blood viscosity with shear rate for four blood conditions based on the Carreau–Yasuda model defined in Eq (3).
Fig 4.
Velocity streamlines in the aortic arch for different blood flow cases: (a) anemic, (b) diabetic, (c) healthy (Case 1), and (d) healthy (Case 2).
Red regions represent higher velocity magnitudes; blue regions indicate lower values, in .
Fig 5.
Velocity vector fields in the aortic arch for different blood flow cases: (a) anemic, (b) diabetic, (c) healthy (Case 1), and (d) healthy (Case 2).
Vector directions and magnitudes illustrate localized flow variations across conditions, in .
Fig 6.
Velocity distributions: average (left), minimum (middle), and maximum (right) across different outlets and cases.
Fig 7.
Helicity contours for four different patient-specific aortic flow cases: (a) anemic, (b) diabetic, (c) healthy (Case 1), and (d) healthy (Case 2).
The color scale indicates helicity values in , with red and blue denoting strong positive and negative helicity regions, respectively.
Fig 8.
Pressure contours in the aortic arch for different blood flow cases: (a) anemic, (b) diabetic, (c) healthy (Case 1), and (d) healthy (Case 2).
Red regions correspond to areas of higher pressure, while blue regions indicate lower pressure, with values presented in Pascal (Pa), highlighting variations due to different blood conditions and physiological factors.
Fig 9.
Volume-averaged pressure contours in the aortic arch for different blood flow cases: (a) anemic, (b) diabetic, (c) healthy (Case 1), and (d) healthy (Case 2).
Red regions correspond to areas of higher pressure, while blue regions indicate lower pressure, with values presented in Pascal (Pa).
Fig 10.
(a) Pressure distribution across four blood conditions: anemic, diabetic, healthy (Case 1), and healthy (Case 2) showing average, maximum, and minimum values. Dotted bars indicate inlet pressure, while diagonally hatched bars represent wall pressure.
Diabetic cases exhibit elevated pressure magnitudes at both inlet and wall locations, while anemic cases show comparatively lower wall pressure values. (b) Pressure-based hemodynamic risk classification (illustrative) using three metrics: minimum, maximum, and average pressure. Color-coded circles represent relative hemodynamic severity levels, where red indicates high, yellow indicates borderline or moderate concern, and green indicates no risk.
Fig 11.
Wall shear stress (WSS) contours in the aortic arch for different blood flow cases: (a) anemic, (b) diabetic, (c) healthy (Case 1), and (d) healthy (Case 2).
Red regions correspond to higher WSS values, while blue regions indicate lower WSS values in Pascal (Pa).
Fig 12.
(a) WSS distribution across four blood conditions–anemic, diabetic, healthy (Case 1), and healthy (Case 2)–showing average, maximum, and minimum values.
A broken y-axis is used to accommodate both low (below 0.05 Pa) and high (above 1 Pa) WSS values. (b) Illustrative hemodynamic risk classification based on three WSS metrics: minimum, maximum, and average WSS. Each cell is color-coded to represent the relative hemodynamic severity under a given metric, where red indicates high, yellow indicates borderline or moderate concern, and green indicates no risk.