FD/FEM Coupling with the Immersed Boundary Method for the Simulation of Aortic Heart Valves

The ever-increasing available computational power allows for solving more complex physical problems spanning multiple physical domains. We present a numerical tool for simulating fluid-structure interaction between blood flow and the soft tissue of heart valves. Using the basic concept of the Immersed Boundary Method, the interaction between the two physical domains (flow and structure) does not require mesh manipulation. We solve the governing equations of the fluid and the structure with domain-specific finite difference and finite element discretisations, respectively. We use a massively parallel algorithmic framework for handling the L2-projection transfer between the loosely coupled highly parallel solvers for fluid and solid. Our tool builds on a well-established and proven Navier-Stokes solver and a novel method for solving non-linear continuum solid mechanics