Flow measurement of incompressible fluid using divergence-free constraint

US5309100A · kind A · utility

Assignee

• Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University · US

Inventors

• Samuel M. Song · Las Vegas, US
• Sandy A. Napel · Menlo Park, US
• Norbert J. Pelc · Wauwatosa, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Oct 30, 1992
• Grant date: May 3, 1994
• Expiry date: Oct 30, 2012

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G01P5/001
• WIPO field: Measurement
• WIPO sector: Instruments

Abstract

A method and apparatus to reduce the noise in three-dimensional phase contrast magnetic resonance velocity measurements exploits the property that blood is incompressible and therefore the velocity field describing its flow must be divergence-free. The divergence-free condition can be incorporated by the projection operation on Hilbert space where the velocity measurements are projected onto the space of divergence-free velocity fields. The reduction of noise is achieved since the projection operation eliminates the noise component that is not divergence-free. Higher quality angiograms are produced due to the noise reduction in the velocity measurement signals.