The Inertia of the Anterior Leaflet of the Heart’s Mitral Valve

Virtual mass effects generate forces that act on any object accelerating in a fluid medium. While there have been computational models of bileaflet mechanical valves that include virtual mass effects [1], current computational models of fluid structure interaction of native mitral valves do not consider virtual mass effects, resulting in an incomplete measure of the forces acting on the valve. As far as the authors aware no closed-form relationship for the virtual mass coefficient, C_m, of the native mitral valve has been determined. Integrating the effects of virtual mass into computational models of the mitral valve would result in a more complete model, and could yield more accurate and relevant results from computational models of the mitral valve.