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Windkessel Effect: Arterial Pressure Buffering

Interactive 3D Windkessel simulator: watch the elastic aorta store pressure during systole and release it during diastole, turning the heart's pulsatile ejection into smooth peripheral blood flow. Tune heart rate, stroke volume, arterial compliance and peripheral resistance.

Medicine & Biophysics3DModerate60 FPS📱 Mobile-adapted⇄ 2D version

Every heartbeat ejects blood in a short, forceful burst — yet blood keeps flowing to your tissues continuously between beats. This simulator renders the two-element Windkessel model in 3D: an elastic arterial chamber that stretches to absorb each systolic surge and recoils through diastole to drive steady peripheral flow. Adjust heart rate, stroke volume, arterial compliance and peripheral resistance and watch systolic and diastolic pressure, mean arterial pressure and pulse pressure respond in real time, with a live pressure waveform and a chamber that visibly swells and deflates with the cardiac cycle.

⚙ Under the hood

A 3D two-element Windkessel model showing how the elastic aorta stores pressure during systole and releases it during diastole, converting the heart's pulsatile ejection into smooth peripheral blood flow.

physiologycardiovascularblood-pressurehemodynamicsarterial-compliance

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install