Real-World Variability in the Prediction of Intracranial Aneurysm Wall Shear Stress: The 2015 International Aneurysm CFD Challenge.

PURPOSE: Image-based computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is widely used to predict intracranial aneurysm wall shear stress (WSS), particularly with the goal of improving rupture risk assessment. Nevertheless, concern has been expressed over the variability of predicted WSS and inconsistent associations with rupture. Previous challenges, and studies from individual groups, have focused on individual aspects of the image-based CFD pipeline. The aim of this Challenge was to quantify the total variability of the whole pipeline. METHODS: 3D rotational angiography image volumes of five middle cerebral artery aneurysms were provided to participants, who were free to choose their segmentation methods, boundary conditions, and CFD solver and settings. Participants were asked to fill out a questionnaire about their solution strategies and experience with aneurysm CFD, and provide surface distributions of WSS magnitude, from which we objectively derived a variety of hemodynamic parameters. RESULTS: A total of 28 datasets were submitted, from 26 teams with varying levels of self-assessed experience. Wide variability of segmentations, CFD model extents, and inflow rates resulted in interquartile ranges of sac average WSS up to 56%, which reduced to < 30% after normalizing by parent artery WSS. Sac-maximum WSS and low shear area were more variable, while rank-ordering of cases by low or high shear showed only modest consensus among teams. Experience was not a significant predictor of variability. CONCLUSIONS: Wide variability exists in the prediction of intracranial aneurysm WSS. While segmentation and CFD solver techniques may be difficult to standardize across groups, our findings suggest that some of the variability in image-based CFD could be reduced by establishing guidelines for model extents, inflow rates, and blood properties, and by encouraging the reporting of normalized hemodynamic parameters.

Lattice Boltzmann scheme for electrolytes by an extended Maxwell-Stefan approach.

This paper presents an extended multicomponent lattice Boltzmann model for the simulation of electrolytes. It is derived by means of a finite discrete velocity model and its discretization. The model recovers momentum and mass transport according to the incompressible Navier-Stokes equation and Maxwell-Stefan formulation, respectively. It includes external driving forces (e.g., electric field) on diffusive and viscous scales, concentration-dependent Maxwell-Stefan diffusivities, and thermodynamic factors. The latter take into account nonideal diffusion behavior, which is essential as electrolytes involve charged species and therefore nonideal long and short-range interactions among the molecules of the species. Furthermore, we couple our scheme to a finite element method to include electrostatic interactions on the macroscopic level. Numerical experiments show the validity of the presented model.

Towards aeroacoustic sound generation by flow through porous media.

In this work, we present single-step aeroacoustic calculations using the Lattice Boltzmann method (LBM). Our application case consists of the prediction of an acoustic field radiating from the outlet of a porous media silencer. It has been proved that the LBM is able to simulate acoustic wave generation and propagation. Our particular aim is to validate the LBM for aeroacoustics in porous media. As a validation case, we consider a spinning vortex pair emitting sound waves as the vortices rotate around a common centre. Non-reflective boundary conditions based on characteristics have been adopted from Navier-Stokes methods and are validated using the time evolution of a Gaussian pulse. We show preliminary results of the flow through the porous medium.