Solution of linear systems in arterial fluid mechanics computations with boundary layer mesh refinement

Computation of incompressible flows in arterial fluid mechanics, especially because it involves fluid-structure interaction, poses significant numerical challenges. Iterative solution of the fluid mechanics part of the equation systems involved is one of those challenges, and we address that in this paper, with the added complication of having boundary layer mesh refinement with thin layers of elements near the arterial wall. As test case, we use matrix data from stabilized finite element computation of a bifurcating middle cerebral artery segment with aneurysm. It is well known that solving linear systems that arise in incompressible flow computations consume most of the time required by such simulations. For solving these large sparse nonsymmetric systems, we present effective preconditioning techniques appropriate for different stages of the computation over a cardiac cycle.