Summerschool and Workshop on Bio-Fluid Mechanics and Heat Transfer

Organizers: Tomasz Kowalewski, Anton van Steenhoven and Andrzej Nowicki.

The main objective of the Summer School  was to merge activities of several groups working on Cardiovascular Fluid Mechanics, both experimentally as well as performing numerical modeling. The course given by experienced senior lecturers gave good overview of the most demanding research problems investigated in this field. The workshop organized in conjunction with the course offered the junior researchers, attending the course, possibility to present their ongoing activities in this field. The meeting aimed to promote in the European Research Area scientific discussions on this challenging multidisciplinary field, appeared to be a good foundation for facilitating new collaborations between “traditional” fluid mechanicians and people using ultrasound diagnostic methods. The event was logistically and financially supported by Center of Excellence ABIOMED located at the Institute of Fundamental Technological Research of Polish Academy of Sciences (IPPT PAN), conjoined with ERCOFTAC SIG-37: Bio-Fluid Mechanics and Heat Transfer.  

Participation

The course addressed researchers and PhD students from Europe working in the field of bio-mechanics. With 70 participants, 13 invited lecturers and 13 oral contributed presentations the meeting gave during the fully packed four days scientific program a successful platform for exchanging knowledge and discussions. The audience consisted of 34 young researchers (below 35 years) and 36 senior scientists. People came from different fields: mechanical engineering, applied mathematics, electronics, medicine, etc, and from 10 European countries (Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Germany, Ireland, UK, Ukraine and Romania).  

Program

The main interest of today’s research in haemodynamics is more and more dedicated to accurate modeling of flow characteristics. It became evident that blood is a complex fluid, with properties depending on many factors, not only shear rate and hematocrit. The cardiovascular tubing system is characterized by large variety of scales, shape and wall properties. The fluid mechanics strongly varies inside different vascular regions, altering pressure drops and blood redistribution in a flexible way. Moreover, the heat and mass transfer within the system plays an important role. The pulsating flow characteristic, laminar to turbulent transitions insert additional complications, yet very difficult to deal with analytical and numerical tools. On the other hand rapid development of different diagnostic tools allow for more and more detailed verification and validation of the modeling attempts. The BF2005 program made an effort to give a good overview of these problems. Generally, it consisted of three main parts: modeling of blood as a flow media, numerical modeling of the cardiovascular flow and experimental diagnostics by optical and acoustic means.  

The course program consisted of the following invited lectures:

• A. Kucaba-Piętal (Poland) - Blood as a complex fluid, flow of suspensions

• A. Nowicki (Poland) - Doppler Music - Listen to the Blood Flow

• G. Romano (Italy) - Heart valves, experimental and modelling

• J. Westerweel & P. Vennemann (Holland) - Blood flow measurements

• G. van Leeuwen & A. van Steenhoven - Heat transfer in blood circulatory system

• K. Affeld (Germany) - Flow in artificial valves and bloodpumps

• A.P.G. Hoeks (Holland) - Do Doppler motion detectors colour arteries red?

• U. Kertzscher (Germany) - Experimental assessment of wall shear flow

• F. van de Vosse (Holland) - Wave propagation in arteries, coronary circulation or aneurysms

• M. Vogt (Germany) - Concepts for high resolution blood flow imaging with high frequency ultrasound

• P. Tortoli- Experimental investigations of blood flow behaviour in large human arteries

• L. Formaggia & A. Veneziani (Italy) - Multiscale modelling of the cardiovascular system

• J. Szumbarski & J.K. Mizerski (Poland)- Mathematical and numerical modelling of cardiovascular flows  

Participants obtained printed materials including full text of the invited lectures and abstracts of the contributed presentations. A post-conference book appeared including invited and contributed lectures. The book, published in the series of ABIOMED Lecture Notes, appeared by the end of 2005 and was distributed by IPPT PAN, Warsaw.  

Added Value of the Course

The course enabled a wide range of researchers from a number of different backgrounds (mechanical engineering, mathematics, electronics, acoustics and medicine) to meet together and discuss their different experience and tools used in the area of cardiovascular fluid mechanics. A number of the attendees noted how useful they found to meet together “partners” using different approaches to the same problems. It was especially interesting to discover similarities and differences in optical and acoustic methods of the blood flow measurements, as well as to compare numerical modelling of cardiac surgery with practical experience of medical doctors.