What Is Cardiovascular Engineering?

Cardiovascular engineering is an interdisciplinary field that applies principles from engineering, physics, and biology to study, model, and treat disorders of the heart and vascular system. The field encompasses fluid dynamics, solid mechanics, biomaterials science, and device design, all directed toward understanding cardiovascular function and developing technologies that address its failure. As described in a survey of bioengineering approaches to the cardiovascular system, the field must span research from basic science to clinical translation, creating diagnostic strategies and interventional devices grounded in quantitative engineering methods.

Cardiovascular engineering draws from mechanical and electrical engineering, materials science, and computational modeling, while remaining tightly coupled to clinical cardiology and physiology. The Georgia Tech Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering identifies cardiovascular engineering as one of its core research areas, encompassing hemodynamics, valve engineering, and regenerative medicine. Progress in the field has been driven by long-standing collaborations between engineers and clinicians, and by advances in computational power that allow realistic simulation of cardiac and vascular function.

Hemodynamics and Vascular Mechanics

Hemodynamics is the study of blood flow and the forces it exerts on vessel walls. Cardiovascular engineers apply computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and experimental flow visualization to characterize how blood moves through the heart, major vessels, and diseased arterial segments. Disturbed or oscillatory wall shear stress at arterial bifurcations is linked to endothelial dysfunction and atherosclerotic plaque formation, a relationship investigated extensively through patient-specific vascular models reconstructed from CT and MRI imaging. Solid mechanics models of vessel wall compliance and arterial stiffness complement the flow analyses, providing a more complete picture of cardiovascular load and strain during the cardiac cycle.

Heart Valve Engineering

Heart valves regulate unidirectional blood flow through the four cardiac chambers. Engineering research in this area addresses the design of prosthetic valves, the durability of bioprosthetic leaflet materials, and the mechanics of native valve pathology. Structural analyses have shown that the mechanical environment experienced by valve leaflet cells differs substantially between the ventricular and aortic surfaces, contributing to asymmetric calcification patterns in aortic stenosis. Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) represents a clinically adopted outcome of cardiovascular engineering, allowing valve implantation via catheter in patients who are high-risk surgical candidates.

Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Approaches

Tissue engineering applies cells, scaffolds, and bioreactor conditioning to fabricate replacement or regenerative cardiovascular structures. Current research targets small-diameter blood vessel grafts, heart valve substitutes that grow and remodel with the patient, and myocardial patches for infarct repair. The challenge in myocardial tissue engineering lies in achieving sufficient cell density, electrical conductivity, and mechanical integration with host tissue to restore contractile function. Bioreactors that subject developing constructs to pulsatile flow and mechanical strain attempt to recapitulate the native hemodynamic environment during maturation, a principle central to tissue engineering research in cardiovascular medicine.

Implantable and Therapeutic Devices

Cardiovascular engineering has produced a range of implantable devices that support or replace cardiac function. Pacemakers and implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) deliver electrical stimuli to restore normal rhythm in patients with bradycardia or life-threatening arrhythmias. Ventricular assist devices (VADs) provide mechanical circulatory support by augmenting or replacing the pumping function of the left or right ventricle. Stents, balloon catheters, and drug-eluting coronary devices restore patency in obstructed vessels. The design of each device requires careful attention to biocompatibility, fatigue life, thrombogenicity, and interaction with surrounding tissue, topics addressed in IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering.

Applications

Cardiovascular engineering has applications in a range of clinical and research settings, including:

• Design and testing of prosthetic heart valves and ventricular assist devices
• Patient-specific computational modeling for surgical planning
• Wearable and implantable sensors for continuous hemodynamic monitoring
• Cardiac tissue engineering for regenerative medicine
• Cardiovascular drug delivery systems and stent coatings