With the maturing of robust and accurate CFD tools, simulation-based product development and virtual prototyping are increasingly recognized by the FDA as valid tools to supplement experimental testing and clinical trials, and facilitate regulatory approval . The medical device industry is fully leveraging these significant advances in CFD to predict device and drug performance and to drive innovative new designs, bringing superior products to market quickly and at a reduced cost and resulting in fewer invasive procedures.
Automated Work-Flow : STAR-CCM+ closes the gap between meaningful results and engineering design by automating your work-flow in a unique single integrated environment. A direct import from all major CAD packages and state-of-the-art meshing (including surface wrapping, overset meshing and motion models for rotating machinery) lead to rapid turnaround time of complex geometries, allowing for easy integration of device and patient specific geometry data. In addition, STAR-CCM+ has an extensive range of visual analysis tools to help deliver insight from the results. The easy to use, integrated nature of STAR-CCM+ allows you to quickly and effortlessly study flow and stress fields and perform bench top comparisons, data tracking and visualization .
DEM : STAR-CCM+ includes a Discrete Element Modeling (DEM) capability that simulates the motion of a large number of interacting discrete particles and tracks the interaction between every particle in a numerically efficient manner, modeling contact forces and energy transfer due to collision and heat transfer between particles. DEM is implemented within the Lagragian framework and is ideal for many biomedical device applications including studying particle deposition in human lungs, modeling embolus in pulsatile flow, or assessing efficiency of vascular filters for specific particle shapes.
Multiphase flow : The Eulerian multiphase model provides an effective means for simulating two-phase and multiphase flow. The extensive range of sub-models provided by STAR-CCM+ include drag, virtual mass, lift and turbulent drag forces, break-up and coalescence models for bubbles, and a granular flow model. With the multiphase models in STAR-CCM+, you can optimize spraying techniques to ensure coating uniformity of drug eluting devices such as coronary stents or track bubbles for microfluidic lab-on-a-chip devices.
Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) : The complex FSI problems in the biomedical device industry are driven by highly compliant vessels and membranes that are structurally impacted by mechanical devices. STAR-CCM+ has a direct link to Abaqus finite element analysis through a co-simulation API developed by SIMULIA, delivering a fully coupled, implicit, two-way FSI and providing automation, efficiency and solution stability. This capability can handle FSI problems with ease, including respiratory/lung, coronary or carotid artery, heart valve and aneurism applications all the way to models of blood pumps such as LVADs coupled with patient-specific data.
Optimization: Optimate, a module in STAR-CCM+, enables intelligent design exploration of the geometrical shape of intravascular devices to improve their implantability, increase their efficiency and reduce their impact on the surrounding blood flow. With Optimate, you can also cost-effectively perform “what if” scenarios and parametric studies to improve on device designs by pinpointing areas of high shear stress and recirculation with the goal of minimizing damage to blood cells and reducing the chance of stroke-inducing blood clot formation.
