Cerebral aneurysm is an abnormal dilatation of the blood vessel which
affects a high percentage of the worldwide population. One way to investigate
this pathology is using in vivo techniques, but these types of experiments have a
high cost and low reproducibility. Thus, to understand the local hemodynamics
of brain aneurysms, it is imperative to manufacture in vitro models that simulate
real brain aneurysms. These biomodels are suitable for experimental testing, as
well as for evaluating and validating computational models. In this work, was
manufactured a biomodel of a cerebral aneurysm made by polydimethylsiloxane
(PDMS), combining rapid prototyping technology with a PDMS gravity casting
process. Experimental flow visualizations were performed at different flow rates.
The flow visualizations results have shown that there is a transition from laminar
to turbulent flow for a flow rate near 6 ml/min. The proposed PDMS biomodels
have shown the ability to perform flow visualizations and have the potential to
help the development and validation of computational models.
The authors acknowledge the financial support provided by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), through the projects EXPL/EME-EME/0732/2021, PTDC/EEI- EEE/2846/2021, funded by NORTE 2020, PORTUGAL2020, and FEDER. This work was also supported by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) under the strategic grants UIDB/04077/2020, UIDB/00690/2020, UIDB/04436/2020 and UIDB/00532/2020. Andrews Souza acknowledges the PhD scholarship 2021.07961.BD attributed by FCT. Partial support from the Junta de Extremadura through Grants No. GR21091 and IB20105 (partially financed by FEDER funds) is gratefully acknowledged.
