An Immersed Boundary Finite-Element Solver for Flow-Induced Deformation of Soft Structures with Application in Cardiac Flows

The modeling of complex biological phenomena such as cardiac mechanics is challenging. It involves complex three dimensional geometries, moving structure boundaries inside the fluid domain and large flow-induced deformations of the structure. We present a fluid-structure interaction solver (FSI) which couples a sharp-interface immersed boundary method for flow simulation with a powerful finite-element based structure dynamics solver. An implicit partitioned (or segregated) approach is implemented to ensure the stability of the solver. We validate the FSI solver with published benchmark for a configuration which involves a thin elastic plate attached to a rigid cylinder. The frequency and amplitude of the oscillations of the plate are in good agreement with published results and non-linear dynamics of the plate and its coupling with the flow field are discussed. The FSI solver is used to understand left-ventricular hemodynamics and flow-induced dynamics of mitral leaflets during early diastolic filling and results from this study are presented.