Influence of Sinus of Valsalva on Aortic Valve Movements by Lattice Boltzmann Method

Aortic valve is a membrane that plays an important role in controlling effective outputs of blood flow from the heart. Aortic stenosis is a disease that aortic valves barely open in systole, which cause considerable reduction of amount of blood flow. It is important to know aortic valve movements due to blood flow in order to consider mechanism of development of the aortic stenosis. In this study, we consider the influence of the sinus of Valsalva on aortic valve movements by Lattice Boltzmann method. The virtual flux method is applied to describe thin aortic valve leaflets. The shape of the sinus of Valsalva is approximated as a semi-ellipse. The aortic valve opens due to high pressure at the left ventricle side, and blood flows toward the aorta. The blood also flows into the sinus of Valsalva, and forms vortices. The aortic valve closure starts due to high pressure at the aorta side and vortices in the sinus of Valsalva as well. We successfully reproduced the aortic valve movements due to blood flows during cardiac cycle by means of virtual flux method.