Textile cardiovascular prostheses are tubular structures made of polyester
filaments. They present particular mechanical properties linked to wavy form
of their walls allowing them to stretch under pressure. Pulsatile blood flow
was studied in a moving walls vascular prosthesis. First, an image
processing device was used to measure prosthesis displacement under air
pressure in an free end impregnated textile prosthesis. Then,
fluid-structure interaction is simulated with a numerical computation code
allowing to couple prosthesis walls motion with blood flow.Navier-Stokes equations governing fluid flow are numerically solved with
N3S code based on finite elements method. The numerical process is based on
the Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE) formulation allowing moving domains.
The obtained results showed a particular distribution of blood flow
velocities and shear stress near the graft walls. The flow velocity
distribution near a prosthetic surface is strongly influenced by the
crimping morphology and deformation. A local flow analysis is imperative to
understanding pathologies implying hemodynamic factors and to optimize the
prosthesis design.