Adaptation of existing cardiovascular simulation model to cardiac pumping physiology

Sammanfattning: Cardiovascular diseases, affecting the heart and blood vessels, are the most common cause of death globally. However, the risk of suffering from a cardiovascular disease could decrease significantly as research improve treatment and identification of symptoms. One way to increase our knowledge and improve education of the cardiovascular system is to develop mathematical simulation models. This thesis project will attend the subject of cardiovascular modeling by analyzing an already implemented simulation model, the CircAdapt model. The project aim to thoroughly analyze the model from a physiological perspective and to derive the mathematical equations constituting the model. In addition to the analysis, extensions to the model have been developed, with the purpose of improving the model structure of the heart to anatomy and known qualities of cardiac pumping. Conclusions of the thesis are that the CircAdapt model well describes the dynamics of the cardiovascular system and consider both physical and physiological properties in its construction. Model limitations in the aspect of cardiovascular physiology have been identified. However, the highest physiological accuracy is the second priority after numerical stability, which can be hard to achieve when working with biomedical modeling. Several adaptations have been executed to improve heart anatomy and physiology. The adaptations differ in accuracy and are in need of future work to improve model stability.