Patient-specific predictions of aneurysm growth and remodeling in the ascending thoracic aorta using the homogenized constrained mixture model.

Patient-specific predictions of aneurysm growth and remodeling in the ascending thoracic aorta using the homogenized constrained mixture model. Biomech Model Mechanobiol. 2019 Jun 14;: Authors: Mousavi SJ, Farzaneh S, Avril S Abstract In its permanent quest of mechanobiological homeostasis, our vasculature significantly adapts across multiple length and timescales in various physiological and pathological conditions. Computational modeling of vascular growth and remodeling (G&R) has significantly improved our insights into the mechanobiological processes of diseases such as hypertension or aneurysms. However, patient-specific computational modeling of ascending thoracic aortic aneurysm (ATAA) evolution, based on finite element models (FEM), remains a challenging scientific problem with rare contributions, despite the major significance of this topic of research. Challenges are related to complex boundary conditions and geometries combined with layer-specific G&R responses. To address these challenges, in the current paper, we employed the constrained mixture model (CMM) to model the arterial wall as a mixture of different constituents such as elastin, collagen fiber families and smooth muscle cells. Implemented in Abaqus as a UMAT, this first patient-specific CMM-based FEM of G&R in human ATAA was first validated for canonical problems such as single-layer thick-wall cylindrical and bilayer thick-wall toric arterial geome...
Source: Biomechanics and Modeling in Mechanobiology - Category: Biomedical Science Authors: Tags: Biomech Model Mechanobiol Source Type: research