A Comparative Study of CFD Performance in Open-Source FEM Solvers for Patient-Specific Carotid Artery Models

Vascular conditions such as atherosclerosis and stroke are challenging to study in vivo due to invasive procedures. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) offers a non-invasive technique to examine the role of blood flow in these conditions using 3D models constructed from patient imaging. Accurate blood flow simulations in these models are crucial for understanding hemodynamic parameters related to cardiovascular disease. This study compares the efficacy of different open-source Finite Element Method (FEM) CFD solvers – SimVascular, FEBio, and FEniCS Oasis – applied to patient-specific carotid artery models. These solvers use different formulations to solve the Navier-Stokes equations. Namely, SimVascular employs a coupled velocity-pressure method (u-p formulation), FEniCS Oasis uses a fractional steps method (the incremental pressure-correction scheme), and FEBio uses a compressible isothermal formulation to model nearly incompressible flow. 4D phase-contrast MRI (4D Flow MRI) is used to construct the models and validate the CFD results. Hemodynamic metrics and mesh convergence are compared for the different solvers. This analysis advances our understanding of the performance of FEM-based CFD software, contributing to enhanced cardiovascular disease modeling.