Blalock-Taussig or BT shunts are a surgical procedure performed on infants suffering from cyanosis or “Blue Baby Syndrome.” Cyanosis refers the purple or blue color of the skin resulting from low blood oxygen saturation. A BT shunt is an artificial vessel placed between the right ventricle and the pulmonary artery to increase lung blood flow and blood oxygen saturation levels.During this independent study, the flow of blood through several different BT shunt configurations was analyzed using ANSYS Fluent, a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software analysis tool.Data from each shunt analysis was when compared to help determine the shunt parameters and design with optimal flow dynamics for use in infants suffering pulmonary vascular blockage. It was found that the entrance boundary of current BT shunts causes many problems with its abrupt change in direction. A newly designed shunt was also proven to partially fix this problem, however, it still needs to be optimized by using characteristics from current day shunts.
Mechanical Engineering and Material Sciences Independent Study
Date of Submission
Hess, Thomas and Agarwal, Ramesh K., "Computational Fluid Dynamics Analysis of Blalock-Taussig Shunt" (2017). Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science Independent Study. 56.