In the present study, the effect of the number of stages of Tesla Micro-Valve (TMV), as well as the dependency of Reynolds number, Re, on the valve performance has been analyzed. For this purpose, different layouts include one to four-stage with different sizes are investigated numerically. The main criterion for evaluation of valves performance is diodicity, Di. Unsteady and steady flow in valve have been simulated and compared. It is shown that although there are some difference but the trend is similar for both responses. Finally, 2-D and steady state computations of the fluid flow have been utilized that reveal a strong dependence of Di on Re and pressure drop, ΔP. The results showed that the maximum Di of the two-stage microvalve is approximately 1.45 times of that of one-stage. Additional stages increase the complexity, and they do not change Di appreciably. It is concluded that two-stage layout of Tesla type valve is the best option. Also, the two-stage valve performance for three different sizes is compared with Nozzle-Diffuser type Micro-Valve (NDMV). Comparisons, which are performed based on calculation Di in applicable range of Re, showed that Di as a function of Re is independent of the valve size. Also, the superiority of the Tesla type valve at higher Re and its weakness at lower Re is observed.

A three-dimensional numerical model of vesicle electrohydrodynamics in the presence of DC electric fields is presented. The vesicle membrane is modeled as a thin capacitive interface through the use of a semi-implicit, gradient-augmented level set jet scheme. The enclosed volume and surface area are conserved both locally and globally by a new Navier--Stokes projection method. The electric field calculations explicitly take into account the capacitive interface by an implicit immersed interface method formulation, which calculates the electric potential field and the transmembrane potential simultaneously. The results match well with previously published experimental, analytic, and two-dimensional computational works.

Each year, approximately 300,000 heart valve repair or replacement procedures are performed worldwide, including approximately 70,000 aortic valve replacement surgeries in the United States alone. Computational platforms for simulating cardiovascular devices such as prosthetic heart valves promise to improve device design and assist in treatment planning, including patient-specific device selection. This paper describes progress in constructing anatomically and physiologically realistic immersed boundary (IB) models of the dynamics of the aortic root and ascending aorta. This work builds on earlier IB models of fluid-structure interaction (FSI) in the aortic root, which previously achieved realistic hemodynamics over multiple cardiac cycles, but which also were limited to simplified aortic geometries and idealized descriptions of the biomechanics of the aortic valve cusps. By contrast, the model described herein uses an anatomical geometry reconstructed from patient-specific computed tomography angiography (CTA) data, and employs a description of the elasticity of the aortic valve leaflets based on a fiber-reinforced constitutive model fit to experimental tensile test data. The resulting model generates physiological pressures in both systole and diastole, and yields realistic cardiac output and stroke volume at physiological Reynolds numbers. Contact between the valve leaflets during diastole is handled automatically by the IB method, yielding a fully competent valve model that supports a physiological diastolic pressure load without regurgitation. Numerical tests show that the model is able to resolve the leaflet biomechanics in diastole and early systole at practical grid spacings. The model is also used to examine differences in the mechanics and fluid dynamics yielded by fresh valve leaflets and glutaraldehyde-fixed leaflets similar to those used in bioprosthetic heart valves. Although there are large differences in the leaflet deformations during diastole, the differences in the open configurations of the valve models are relatively small, and nearly identical hemodynamics are obtained in all cases considered.

A numerical and systematic parameter study of three-dimensional vesicle electrohydrodynamics is presented to investigate the effects of varying electric field strength and different fluid and membrane properties. The dynamics of vesicles in the presence of dc electric fields is considered, in both the presence and absence of linear shear flow. For suspended vesicles it is shown that the conductivity ratio and viscosity ratio between the interior and exterior fluids, as well as the vesicle membrane capacitance, substantially affect the minimum electric field strength required to induce a full prolate-oblate-prolate transition. In addition, there exists a critical electric field strength above which a vesicle will no longer tumble when exposed to linear shear flow.