Seminário Matemática, Sistemas e Robótica 

23/11/2007, 15:00 — 16:00 — Sala P10, Pavilhão de Matemática
Adélia Sequeira, IST/DM

Modeling approach and simulations of blood coagulation dynamics

Blood coagulation is one of the important defense mechanisms preventing the loss of blood following a vascular injury. When the endothelium is damaged a complex physiological process called hemostasis is set into action: the blood vessel diameter is diminished slowing bleeding, blood platelets get activated and a complex sequence of chemical reactions occurs, leading to the formation of a fibrin clot (thrombus) localized at the site of vessel wall damage. The process of platelet activation and blood coagulation is quite complex and not yet completely understood. A number of researchers have attempted to tackle this challenging problem. Recently a phenomenological comprehensive model for clot formation and lysis in flowing blood that extends existing models to integrate biochemical, physiologic and rheological factors, has been developed. The aim of this talk is to present a numerical method and results for this model. Three-dimensional numerical simulations are obtained in a straight vessel for a shear-thinning non-Newtonian blood flow model coupled with a system of advection-reaction diffusion equations, using a finite volume semi-discretization in space, on structured grids, and a multistage scheme for time integration. These are preliminary results to validate the model and the numerical code.