Numerical simulation of the aqueous humor flow in the eye drainage system; a healthy and pathological condition comparison.
G.J. Martínez Sánchez, Carlos Escobar-del Pozo, Jeessy Medina, J. Naude, Alberto Brambila Solórzano
Abstract
• Aqueous humor flows through the drainage system . • A numerical simulation is performed to describe the aqueous humor flow in SC. • Buoyancy effects have a small influence on aqueous humor flow. • Position of collector channels shows a strong influence on the shear stress. • Position of collector channels shows a small influence on intraocular pressure . The present work describes the motion of aqueous humor through the anterior chamber and the trabecular drainage system, considering several distributions of the collector channels. The 3D computational model , implemented into the open-source software, was reconstructed from an optical coherence tomography . The model has been employed to simulate the aqueous humor dynamics considering buoyancy effects . The presence of the anterior chamber, the trabecular meshwork, and the Schlemm’s canal were taken into consideration with 14 different distributions of collector channels. The influence of collector channels position on the intraocular pressure and shear stress has been analyzed, for a healthy and a glaucomatous condition. Aqueous humor velocity, pressure, temperature, wall shear stress , skin friction coefficient and Nusselt number , are presented for the different cases. The results indicate that the position of the collector channels has a strong influence on the wall shear stress on the Schlemm’s canal and collector channels.