Biomechanical implications of congenitally bicuspid aortic valves: a finite element analysis of patient-specific geometry

This thesis introduces a framework aimed at developing an aid for physicians to diagnose and manage failing aortic valves using finite element (FE) simulations. The bicuspid aortic valve (BAV) is the most commonly observed valvular defect (Sievers et al. 2007) and therefore used to investigate the clinical utility of FE-based mechanical simulations. For the analysis, patient data was collected using real-time 3D echocardiography (rt3DE) of five normal valves and three pathological. The valve geometries were reconstructed into 3D models including the sinus and leaflet structures. An FE analysis was completed on the models, and the results were critically analyzed and validated with experimental data. Results indicate that human patient aortic valves can be successfully reconstructed and when simulated, realistic deformation is observed. This thesis focused on severity assessment of BAV morphologies through comparison to that of normal aortic valves.