A velocity tracking approach for the Data Assimilation problem in blood flow simulations

preprintSeveral advances have been made in Data Assimilation techniques applied to blood flow modeling. Typically,idealized boundary conditions, only verified in straight parts of the vessel, are assumed. We present ageneral approach, based on a Dirichlet boundary control problem, that may potentially be used in differentparts of the arterial system. The relevance of this method appears when computational reconstructions ofthe 3D domains, prone to be considered sufficiently extended, are either not possible, or desirable, due tocomputational costs. Based on taking a fully unknown velocity profile as the control, the approach uses adiscretize then optimize methodology to solve the control problem numerically. The methodology is appliedto a realistic 3D geometry representing a brain aneurysm. The results show that this DA approach may bepreferable to a pressure control strategy, and that it can significantly improve the accuracy associated totypical solutions obtained using idealized velocity profiles