A cerebral or intra-cranial aneurysm (IA) is a pathological saccular bulge occurring
in the cerebral arteries of the brain. These structures have a propensity to rupture due
to their structurally deficient arising from their pathological nature. A ruptured IA can
have disastrous or fatal consequence for a patient. Surgical intervention furthermore carries
its own innate risks. Therefore, an understanding of IA initiation, growth and rupture
remains imperative in the treatment of the disease. However, these processes remain poorly
understood.
Hemodynamics, the mechanical forces imparted on the vessel wall from the flowing blood
contained within, is thought to be a substantial contributing factor in the progression of the
disease. The study of aneurysmal hemodynamics and their impact on the aneurysm wall
remains challenging due to the inaccessibility from their location deep within the brain
that clinicians are faced with. Therefore, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) studies are
frequently utilized in the study of aneurysmal heodynamics.
The work herein focuses on advancing the study of aneurysmal hemodynamics in four
major areas. The first is an extensive categorization of the blood flow waveforms found within
the cerebral circulation from a uniquely large data-set of 272 cardiovascular patent waveforms
that quantifies the impact on the hemodynamics from the variation in this large data-set. The
second section focuses on quantifying the multi-parameter relationship between aneurysmal
geometry and intra-saccular flow-structure via parametric study. The third section explores
the impact of the pathological morphology of aneurysms on the blood’s ability to transport
oxygen to the wall tissue within the aneurysm. Finally, this work identifies geometric features
additional to those previously known which initiate pathological high-frequency fluctuations
in the blood flow and examines possible solution strategies in answering the open question
as to what impact do these flow features have on the development of IAs.
