Which design performs better?
Compare leaflet, frame and material concepts. Examine tradeoffs in opening, closure, coaptation, stress and hemodynamics before advancing the strongest candidates.
Heart Valve Simulations
Heart valve FSI,
built for difficult questions.
Leaflet mechanics, blood flow, deployment and anatomy do not behave as separate problems. Our team combines FlowVision CFD with Abaqus structural simulation in a two-way coupled system to help valve developers compare designs, explain unexpected performance and decide what to test next, from defined virtual bench conditions to selected patient-specific studies.
Our team has modeled and simulated heart valves since 2008.
Performance and Mechanism
Quantify performance. Understand why.
Transvalvular pressure gradient, effective orifice area and regurgitant fraction quantify what a valve delivers at a given operating point. Coupled FSI helps reveal how leaflet kinematics, response to flow reversal, contact, coaptation, stress and the evolving flow field produce that result.
Connecting performance with its underlying mechanisms gives development teams a stronger basis for deciding what to change and what to test next.
Integral performance
TPG, EOA and RF
Leaflet response
Motion, contact, coaptation and stress
Flow behavior
Jet development, leakage, recirculation and washout
Independent examples from separate studies and time points. These are illustrative result views, not synchronized panels or quantitative comparisons.
Questions We Help Answer
Built around the decision ahead.
A focused model should answer a focused development question. We define each study and its supporting evidence around the decision you need to make.
Why are we seeing differences in our bench tests?
Recreate the relevant test configurations and operating points to investigate differences between devices, repeat tests or setups. Coupled results help identify whether the observed behavior is associated with geometry, material response, deployment, hemodynamics or the test conditions themselves.
Bench imagingCoupled FSIWhy did this anatomy or patient group show a better outcome?
Compare anatomical and patient-specific cases to investigate how geometry, calcification, sizing, positioning and deployment influence leaflet mechanics and blood flow. This helps develop and test mechanistic explanations for differences observed between patients or groups.
What changes after deployment?
Evaluate device expansion, positioning and interaction with anatomy. Explore how sizing, orientation, underexpansion, calcification or patient geometry may alter leaflet behavior and blood flow.
FlowVision + Abaqus FSI
Established solvers.
Valve-specific expertise.
Heart valve FSI is demanding. Large deformation, nonlinear material response, repeated contact, rapidly changing flow passages and narrow leakage paths all influence one another.
Abaqus resolves nonlinear structural mechanics, device deployment, large deformation and leaflet contact. FlowVision resolves transient hemodynamics around moving and deforming structures. Through two-way coupling, fluid loading and structural motion evolve together during opening, closure and flow reversal.
We preserve the difficult part of the physics. Direct leaflet-to-leaflet contact is resolved within the nonlinear structural model under relevant loading conditions, rather than imposed through prescribed motion or idealized open and closed states. Coaptation, deformation and narrow leakage paths emerge from the coupled response.
The software provides the foundation. Valve-specific model preparation, numerical checks and informed interpretation turn that technology into evidence a development team can use. Our specialists remain directly involved when the problem becomes difficult.
Credibility for the Intended Use
Evidence matched to the question.
A model is credible only in relation to the question it is used to answer. We define the intended context of use, check numerical behavior for each simulation campaign, compare relevant predictions with appropriate measurements, and assess sensitivities and uncertainty in proportion to the decision being supported.
Our evidence base includes bench comparisons, including studies performed blind, across defined valve models and operating points for TPG, EOA and RF. Selected studies also compare leaflet kinematics with high-speed imaging and flow velocities using supplementary particle image velocimetry. Patient-specific results have been compared retrospectively with available post-procedural clinical measurements.
These comparisons anchor measurable valve performance. Model-resolved contact, coaptation, stress and coupled flow then help explain why that performance occurs.
We document assumptions, checks and limitations so that the relevance of the evidence remains clear.
Request our valve validation dataExperiment
Simulation
From Signals to Quantities of Interest
Make the performance calculation traceable.
Pressure and flow histories connect the simulated cardiac cycle to reported valve performance. The selected example shows the evaluation intervals used to calculate pressure gradient, effective orifice area and RMS flow.
Specialists Beside Your Team
A specialist team accountable for the work.
You define the engineering question and quantities of interest. We take responsibility for model preparation, coupled simulation, numerical checking, analysis and reporting. We then work directly with your engineers to interpret what the results support and where limitations remain.
Whether you need a focused pilot, a broader simulation program or additional FSI capability within your team, our specialists stay engaged from the first question to the next development decision.
Start a Conversation
Bring us the difficult valve question.
A design tradeoff, unexpected bench result, deployment concern, patient-specific scenario or evidence gap is enough to begin. We will help define a focused first study and the level of credibility it requires.