Validation of an Open Source Framework for the Simulation of Blood Flow in Rigid and Deformable Vessels

Computational methods are the tool of choice for the study of physics phenomena in many fields of scientific endeavor. To guarantee the reliability of the results of computational analyses, it is crucial that mathematical models are validated and numerical methods are verified. A verified method is capable of correctly solving the problem equations, while a valid model is able to correctly describe the features of the problem (i.e. it uses the right equations). In this paper we: (i) verify and validate an open source computational fluid dynamics (CFD) framework for the solution of problems of interest in hemodynamics and (ii) provide a report on the methodology that we use, to make our experiences reproducible.