Abstract: The recognition of the role hemodynamic forces have in the
localization and development of disease has motivated large-scale efforts
to enable patient-specific simulations. When combined with computational
approaches that can extend the models to include physiologically accurate
hematocrit levels in large regions of the circulatory system, these
image-based models yield insight into the underlying mechanisms driving
disease progression and inform surgical planning or the design of next
generation drug delivery systems. Building a detailed, realistic model of
human blood flow, however, is a formidable mathematical and computational
challenge. The models must incorporate the motion of fluid, intricate
geometry of the blood vessels, continual pulse-driven changes in flow and
pressure, and the behavior of suspended bodies such as red blood cells. In
this talk, I will discuss the development of HARVEY, a parallel fluid
dynamics application designed to model hemodynamics in patient-specific
geometries. I will cover the methods introduced to reduce the overall
time-to-solution and enable near-linear strong scaling on up to 1,572,864
core of the IBM Blue Gene/Q supercomputer. Finally, I will present the
expansion of the scope of projects to address not only vascular diseases,
but also treatment planning and the movement of circulating tumor cells in
the bloodstream.
Posted by: Deb Zemek