March - 2015
partners
cellence (CoE) focuses on the development of novel simulation techniques for advanced applications. Typically, these cutting-edge solutions are pursued in collaboration with partners from industry and research organizations. Team members have different scientific and engineering backgrounds, which ensure the multi-disciplinary expertise required to solve technological challenges.
The role of ESI in VPH-DARE@IT We talked to Dr. Mustafa Megahed about the role of ESI in VPH-DARE@IT, and how they became involved in the project. Mustafa told us that several collaborations were pursued with some of the project partners. The modelling work required for VPH-DARE@IT analysis seemed like a good extension to the existing collaborations building on tools already proven and in use towards next generation multi-scale modelling tools. ESI was involved in some of the first discussions about scope and selection of possible methods to approach the challenge. The main contribution of ESI to VPH-DARE@ IT is the simulation of fluid-structure interaction processes in the human brain. The objective is to gain a better understanding and a reliable, patient specific prediction of the influence that different factors may have on fluid flow and the interaction between different compartments and how that might affect the development of dementia disease. The main challenges in this endeavour stem from the multi-physics nature of the problem. These aspects in particular relate to the interaction of blood, CSF, and human tissue, which is porous in nature. Simulating this interaction necessitates the coupling of fluid flow with elastic and multi-
MAR 2015
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V PH - DA R E @ I T P ro j e c t
compartmental poroelastic materials, where the latter are governed by the so-called MPE theory developed by UCL.
Key People Members of the CFD and Multiphysics Centre of Excellence are involved in this large project. The principle investigators are: Dr. Joerg Willems, has a background in numerical analysis and has previously worked on multiscale problems e.g. related to flow in porous media. Currently, he is collaborating with colleagues from other ESI offices to integrate the simulation tools relevant for VPH-DARE@IT in a coupling platform. Dr. Mustafa Megahed, has more than 25 years of experience in the development of numerical algorithms and modelling. He is currently focussing on the interaction of pulsation blood flow with CSF in perivascular vessels. The interaction between the blood, the tissue and the freely available CSF leads to a form of CSF pumping the cause of which is being studied numerically.
Contributions to the project The contribution of ESI to VPH-DARE@IT is in the coupling of different physical aspects relevant for simulating processes in the human brain. To achieve this ESI develops a platform that facilitates the interaction of otherwise independent simulation tools. For this the platform adopts a plugin strategy, which is particularly suitable as it allows the coupling of different solvers without having to go through an expensive and error-prone process of reengineering. The different physical processes that will be coupled in this effort are fluid flow, elasticity and multicompartmental poroelasticity. The overall coupled solution is targeted to be performed on computational do-
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N ew sl e tte r I ssu e I I I
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