Computational study of fluid-valve interaction involving deep vein thrombosis

The venous valves in veins carry on the important function of eliminating the retrograde (reverse) flow of blood in veins and help the veins to carry on their work effectively. The abnormal functioning of venous valves can cause deep vein thrombosis (DVT) which is a phenomena caused by clotting in deep veins. The importance of the thesis work lies in understanding the role of blood flow dynamics in Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT). Elderly People and pregnant women are the ones who are most likely to develop DVT. It was determined from previous studies that women in their postpartum period are at the highest risk of developing a DVT and even pulmonary embolism in most of the cases. The aid of computational study could help us in improving the prophylaxis given to the elderly and pregnant women, by better understanding the physics involved in the clot formation. The main goal of my thesis work is to study fluid dynamics behavior in deep veins with computational fluid dynamics. For this work, I create a geometry which resembles the blood vein containing unidirectional venous valves and also I am going to create the same flow circumstances which depict the flow undergoing in the blood veins. With latest advancement in computational resources (both software and hardware), it has become affordable to perform high fidelity computational studies for this problem. The main point of interest is to see what happens to the flow patterns when the blood flows past the valves in the blood veins and to understand how the velocity varies in the pocket like structure. My thesis work lets us see the flow patterns in the blood veins and find where the vortices are formed when there are obstructions like the valves acting to stop the flow, which could be helpful in determining a chance for the clot formation in some specific areas