An Integrated Electro-Mechano-Fluid Mathematical Model of the Human Heart
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We propose a comprehensive and fully coupled electro-mechano-fluid (EMF) computational model of the human heart. The model includes cardiac electrophysiology, represented by the monodomain equation coupled with suitable ionic models, a biophysically detailed model for muscular contraction, solid mechanics of the cardiac walls, blood hemodynamics, and a lumped parameter model of the external circulation. Valves are accounted for by means of the Resistive Immersed Implicit Surface method. The different submodels are fully coupled, through electro-mechanical and mechano-electrical feedbacks, fluid-structure interaction (FSI), and geometric multiscale coupling of the fluid and circulation models. For the numerical solution of the coupled EMF problem we put in place a segregated-staggered scheme, that leverages the multiphysics nature of the problem to attain efficiency and flexibility. The FSI subproblem is solved with a geometrically explicit monolithic approach, balancing efficiency, accuracy and stability. We carry out simulations of a realistic human heart in healthy conditions, showing that the proposed model is capable of reproducing the physiological behavior of human hearts, both qualitatively and quantitatively, throughout the whole cardiac cycle. This work has been funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 740132, IHEART 2017-2022, P.I. Alfio Quarteroni).
