Blood damage is a major concern for cardiovascular flows with the presence of implanted medical devices. The evolution of device design is often structured around reducing blood damage complications, such as hemolysis and thrombus formation.

A numerical suspension flow solver, based on the lattice-Boltzmann method, is presented that can accurately quantify blood damage in cardiovascular flows, including high Reynolds number flows. This method is capable of high spatiotemporal resolution simulations with optimal parallel computing. The numerical method models realistic platelets for accurate damage quantification compared to alternative methods. The numerical tool is validated, then tested on a baseline case of a St. Jude Medical bileaflet mechanical heart valve. Blood damage results are analyzed in both Lagrangian and Eulerian viewpoints.

The numerical tool can be used as an accurate and efficient methodology for a variety of new medical devices and cardiovascular flows, for the purposes of device optimization and predictive assessment.