Heart Essay

Download as docx, pdf, or txt
Download as docx, pdf, or txt
You are on page 1of 4

Cardio Vascular fluid dynamics

A heart which plays a significant role in supplying blood in different


parts of the body works as a pump. Fluid like blood, which is composed
of different components and to analyze some fundamental principle
underlying its motion can be useful to a cardiologist. The whole
cardiovascular system comprises of systemic and pulmonary circuits like
how pulmonary veins brings oxygenated blood to left atrium and fills
in left ventricle after passing through atrioventricular valve(prevents
backflow of blood) causes contraction in atrium and then finally passes
through the Aorta vessel to perfuse different oxygen hungry tissues and
parts of body i.e. ears, head, hands and toes etc. Similarly, deoxygenated
blood arrives from Vena-cava veins superior and inferior to right
atrium and flows finally to lungs to make blood rich with oxygen. This
whole process leads to describe cardiovascular system in terms of the
characteristic fluid dynamics variables (pressures, volumes, flow rates)
and the hemodynamic parameters which enables to evaluate the cardiac
efficiency and performance.

figure 1.0
Basic Principles of Fluid Mechanics

Blood Velocity, Acceleration and Flow


Blood velocity through blood vessels can be measured using Doppler
ultrasound method but since it is the magnitude and direction of forces
acting on blood that are likely to be of clinical significance, it may be
more useful to consider accelerations rather than velocities. So, when
acceleration is constant
U=at
Where U is the velocity, a is the constant acceleration and t is the time
over which the acceleration has operated. Lower than normal value for
peak velocity may be the result of a lower acceleration acting for a
normal time, or a normal acceleration (or force) acting for a shorter time.
We can also measure the area of jets and orifice.
Area = Blood flow
Blood velocity
Jet area within the heart or great vessels may also be significant. For
example, mean right and left ventricular stroke volumes are identical in
the normal heart, whereas peak forward tricuspid velocities are
consistently about half of those across the mitral valve. It is therefore
clear that right ventricular filling is achieved with a jet area
approximately double that of the left.

Conservation of Mass
We know that in our body mass is conserved but can change into various
forms. For example, some of the plasma content of blood can be
transformed into interstitial fluid but the mass remains constant in the
end. Since blood is nearly incompressible (i.e. its density is constant),
the conservation of mass can be expressed simply
dV
=Qin−Qout
dt

where V is the volume of the control volume (m3), Qin and Qout are
the volume flow rates (m3/s) in and out of the volume. A useful example
of control volume can be volume defined by left ventricle. Most of the
volume can be defined by the endocardium ventricle when the valves
are closed but once they are open, we need to choose a surface like plane
at a root of valve leaflets.
More importantly, the conservation equation is satisfied with average
flows. Thus, we can say, for example, that the average flow in the
pulmonary arteries must equal the average flow in the systemic arteries
because, on average, the volume of blood in either ventricle is constant.

The steady Bernoulli equation


Daniel Bernoulli derived a relation to find stagnation pressure of a fluid
whose flow is steady, viscous effects are negligible.
1
P+ ρ V 2=P 0(constant )
2
In Cardiology the above equation gets modified to
∆ P=4 V 2 whichis commonly used to estimate
the pressure difference between two chambers of the heart or a ventricle.
Dimensions
of this equation suggest that it is not dimensionally correct but is
accurate when used in a clinic.

Equation’s Drawback

The equation only remains valid when the density of blood is constant.
This example exposes another common mechanical mis-usage in
cardiology. The difference in pressure between two points in the
cardiovascular system is commonly referred by cardiologists as the
'gradient'. Properly, the gradient is the difference per unit distance and
therefore involves the distance between the measurement sites. This
incorrect usage of 'gradient' may be too well established for us to suggest
that it be replaced by the more proper 'difference'.

You might also like