Computational Prediction of Fluid Induced Stress States in Dynamically Conditioned Engineered Heart Valve Tissues

There is extensive documented evidence that mechanical conditioning plays a significant role in the development of tissue grown in-vitro for heart valve scaffolds [1–3]. Modern custom made bioreactors have been used to study the mechanobiology of engineered heart valve tissues [1]. Specifically fluid-induced shears stress patterns may play a critical role in up-regulating extracellular matrix secretion by progenitor cell sources such as bone marrow derived stem cells (BMSCs) [2] and increasing the possibility of cell differentiation towards a heart valve phenotype. We hypothesize that specific biomimetic fluid induced shear stress environments, particularly oscillatory shear stress (OSS), have significant effects on BMSCs phenotype and formation rates. As a first step here, we attempt to quantify and delineate the entire 3-D flow field by developing a CFD model to predict the fluid induced shear stress environments on engineered heart valves tissue under quasi-static steady flow and dynamic steady flow conditions.