Advances in Cardiovascular Fluid Mechanics

Dear Colleagues,

The cardiovascular system exhibits complex flows and fluid–structure interactions across scales, from cardiac chambers and heart valves to large arteries, veins, and the microcirculation. Non‑Newtonian blood rheology, compliant walls, and intricate geometries give rise to rich hemodynamics—such as vortices, secondary and helical flows, and heterogeneous wall shear stress—that are tightly linked to physiological function and the initiation and progression of disease. Recent advances in imaging, experimental methods, and computational modeling now allow detailed, often patient‑specific, characterization of cardiovascular flows in vivo, in vitro, and in silico, with growing impact on diagnosis, risk assessment, and therapy planning.

This Special Issue of Bioengineering welcomes original research and comprehensive reviews on cardiovascular fluid mechanics spanning clinically derived data, experimental flow phantoms, computational simulations, and mathematical modeling. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

• intracardiac and valvular flows;
• coronary, aortic, peripheral, venous, and microvascular hemodynamics;
• non‑Newtonian blood properties and rheological modeling;
• wall shear stress and mechanobiology;
• fluid–structure interaction of the heart, vessels, and devices;
• multiscale or network models of the circulation;
• contributions using Doppler ultrasound, echocardiography, 4D flow MRI, CT, and invasive measurements;
• advanced in vitro and in vivo experiments;
• high‑fidelity CFD/FSI;
• reduced‑order or multiscale models;
• rigorous theoretical or mathematical analysis.

The Special Issue also encourages studies that bridge engineering and clinical practice, such as patient‑specific simulations for surgical or interventional planning, hemodynamic assessment and optimization of cardiovascular devices, and data‑driven or hybrid physics/AI methods for fast prediction, risk stratification, and decision support. Methodological papers on validation and verification, uncertainty quantification, open benchmark datasets, and best‑practice workflows that facilitate translation of cardiovascular fluid mechanics into routine clinical and regulatory use are also in scope.

Dr. Yan Zhang
Dr. Hwa Liang Leo
Guest Editors

Dr. Ruihang Zhang
Affiliation: Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering, University of Minnesota Duluth
Homepage: https://scse.d.umn.edu/faculty-staff/ruihang-rita-zhang
E-mail: rhzhang@d.umn.edu
Research Interests: cardiovascular fluid dynamics; computational fluid dynamics (CFD); particle image velocimetry (PIV); cerebral aneurysm
Guest Editor Assistant

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• cardiovascular fluid mechanics
• intracardiac and valvular flows
• arterial, venous, and microvascular flows
• wall shear stress and mechanobiology
• non‑newtonian flow
• fluid–structure interaction
• cardiovascular device
• patient‑specific CFD and digital twins
• in vitro experiments
• in vivo flow measurements
• multiscale modeling
• data‑driven and AI‑augmented hemodynamics