Matters of the heart

The contraction of the heart muscle combines with the opening and closing of the cardiac valves to generate a complex flow in the heart. Predicting this flow presents a significant challenge for computational models, a challenge that Meschini et al. (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 834, 2018, pp. 271-307) tackle head-on by simulating not only the flow in a modelled left ventricle of the heart, but also the coupled dynamics of the mitral valve. The model is validated against a well-designed companion experiment and the authors then proceed to examine the effects of cardiac and valvular dysfunction, as well as prosthetic valves, on ventricular haemodynamics. The insights provided by this study extend from the functional morphology of the left ventricle to the implications of the choice of valve implant on ventricular function.