Parallel Blood Flow Simulation (PBFS) is an innovative grid-enabled system designed for the simulation of the blood flow in human cardiovascular system. It aims to provide the complete solution throughout the process of performing the blood flow simulation: (1) 3D artery model preparation from DICOM images, (2) simulation itself (grid enabled finite element analysis) and finally, (3) the result quantity fields visualization, graphing and post-processing. The origination of the idea implemented in PBFS is a software PAK-F for FE (finite element) computer simulation of the viscous fluid flow with mass transport and heat transport. 

 Social and scientific impact

1. Help in understanding mechanisms of the flow hemodynamics in arteries

2. Detailed analysis of the blood flow in arteries which are liable for disease development

3. Help in design and optimization of the medical equipment

4. Help in complex surgical procedures planning

Why Grid?

1. Increased application speed thanks to parallelization and deployment on Grid

2. Application speed is not the most important factor: even more important is the fact that using the grid infrastructure, the scientist or physician can utilize large amount of memory for the computation, making the level of reality an order of magnitude higher!

3. Running multiple job units simultaneously, at single or multiple Grid sites, makes the case-study of hemodynamics or planned surgical intervention quick and reliable. 

Feature highlights

1. Automatic geometry extraction and finite element mesh generation from the medical images in DICOM format. This process has been made as easy as possible: the user only separates relevant blood vessel from the rest.

2. Finite element analysis for fluids and mass transport. This is extremely time-consuming and memory-demanding task. FE solver for fluids and mass transport is a grid enabled MPI application which runs on any MPI enabled grid resource.

3. The result postprocessing & visualization. The output data is taken from the grid Storage Elements, postprocessed and visualized in PBFS software package.

Future development

The overall goal is the future clinical-diagnostic expert system with a new paradigm of predictive medicine where physician will utilize computer simulations to predict the outcome of alternative treatments for an individual patient.