On the prevalence of flow instabilities from high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics of intracranial bifurcation aneurysms

High-fidelity computational fluid dynamics (HF-CFD) has revealed the potential for high-frequency flow instabilities (aka turbulent-like flow) in intracranial aneurysms, consistent with classic in vivo and in vitro reports of bruits and/or wall vibrations. However, HF-CFD has typically been performed on limited numbers of cases, often with unphysiological inflow conditions or focused on sidewall-type aneurysms where flow instabilities may be inherently less prevalent. Here we report HF-CFD of 50 bifurcation aneurysm cases from the open-source Aneurisk model repository. These were meshed using quadratic finite elements having an average effective spatial resolution of 0.065 mm, and solved under physiologically-pulsatile flow conditions using a well-validated, minimally-dissipative solver with 20,000 time-steps per cardiac cycle Flow instability was quantified using the recently introduced spectral power index (SPI), which quantifies, from 0 to 1, the power associated with velocity fluctuations above those of the driving inflow waveform. Of the 50 cases, nearly half showed regions within the sac having SPI up to 0.5, often with non-negligible power into the 100's of Hz, and roughly 1/3 had sac-averaged SPI > 0.1. High SPI did not significantly predict rupture status in this cohort. Proper orthogonal decomposition of cases with highest SPIavg revealed time-varying energetics consistent with transient turbulence. Our reported prevalence of high-frequency flow instabilities in HF-CFD modelling of aneurysms suggests that care must be taken to avoid routinely overlooking them if we are to understand the highly dynamic mechanical forces to which some aneurysm walls may be exposed, and their prevalence in vivo.

Automated summary

High-fidelity computational fluid dynamics (HF-CFD) reveals the potential for high-frequency flow instabilities in intracranial aneurysms. While high SPI values do not significantly predict rupture status, it is important not to overlook these instabilities for a better understanding of the dynamic mechanical forces on aneurysm walls.