Robust Shape Optimization for Artifical Blood Pumps: Hematological Design, Large-scale Transient Simulations, and Influence of Constitutive Models, Sensitivity Analysis

• Antragsteller: Professor Marek Behr, Ph.D.; Professor Dr. Christian Bischof
• Fachliche Zuordnung: Mathematik
• Förderung: Förderung von 2006 bis 2011
• Projektkennung: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Projektnummer 25250102

Analysis and design optimization of blood-handling mechanical devices, and in particular, miniature heart-assist blood pumps, presents a number of unique challenges. The micro-structural properties of blood affect both the choice of the design objectives, such as minimizing blood damage and clotting, and the choice of flow equations, which should account for the non-Newtonian nature of blood as a continuum. We propose to address, in the context of shape optimization of blood pumps, the issue of objective functions which can be correlated with the accumulation of blood damage along flow pathlines, and the influence of constitutive model (Newtonian, generalized Newtonian, and viscoelastic) on the optimal shapes. The entire optimization tool chain, based on analytically-derived sensitivities and adjoints, will be then subjected to sensitivity analysis with the help of automatic differentiation suitably adapted to the optimization procedure. It is expected that criteria for detecting inadequacies in constitutive modeling will be exemplified, e.g., by extreme sensitivity of the optimal shapes to model parameters. A sample shape optimization problem in an actual complex geometry of an axial blood pump is to be solved during this phase of the project.

• DFG-Verfahren: Schwerpunktprogramme
• Teilprojekt zu: SPP 1253: Optimierung mit partiellen Differentialgleichungen