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Windkessel Chain: Pulse Wave Transit Along the Arterial Tree (2D)

Interactive 2D distributed Windkessel model: the arterial tree is discretized into six elastic compartments linked by viscous resistance, solving an independent RC-ladder ODE system per segment so a real pressure pulse takes measurable time to travel from the aortic root to the periphery — a transit delay the single-chamber lumped model cannot show.

Medicine & Biophysics2DModerate60 FPS📱 Mobile-adapted⇄ 3D version

This 2D companion to the 3D Windkessel simulator replaces the single lumped arterial compartment with a chain of six elastic segments, each solving its own compliance equation and linked to its neighbors by a viscous longitudinal resistance R_L. The result is a genuine distributed model — an RC transmission-line network — in which a pressure pulse injected at the aortic root measurably takes time to reach the periphery, damping and flattening slightly along the way. Adjust heart rate, stroke volume, total arterial compliance and total peripheral resistance exactly as in the 3D model, plus the new vessel-segment resistance control, and watch the six chambers swell in a visible left-to-right sequence while the live readouts track how systolic, diastolic and mean pressure — and the pulse transit time itself — differ between the aortic root and the periphery.

⚙ Under the hood

A 2D distributed Windkessel model: the arterial tree is discretized into six elastic compartments linked by viscous resistance, each solving its own compliance ODE, so a real pressure pulse takes measurable time to travel from the aortic root to the periphery — a transit delay the single-chamber lumped model cannot show.

physiologycardiovascularblood-pressurehemodynamicsarterial-compliancepulse-wave-velocity

2D · HTML5 Canvas 2D · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install