Lumped-Parameter Modelling of Cardiovascular System Dynamics under Different Healthy and Diseased Conditions

Cardiovascular disease is the most common cause of death in the modern society, and research into the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular diseases is an urgent task. Lumped-parameter mathematical modelling as an efficient and effective research technique has been extensively applied in the cardiovascular dynamics research, and has achieved enormous success in assisting the cardiovascular physiology study. This thesis reports a coherent work of lumped-parameter cardiovascular modelling based on some selected works that the author has conducted and published in the past several years. After a critical and comprehensive review of the concurrent lumped-parameter modelling technique, an improved lumped-parameter model that effectively describes the important cardiovascular features of heart valve dynamics and atrial-ventricular septum motion is presented. The model is then adapted to study several application cases of typical heart failure condition with ventricular assist device support, and extension of the lumped-parameter modelling for the optimisation of a pulsatile bioreactor in cardiovascular tissue engineering study. Some on-going works and future directions are also introduced. The reported modelling studies are useful for the cardiovascular physiology research and design optimisation of cardiovascular prosthetic organs.