Experimental and Numerical Evaluations of the Viscoelastic Mechanical Behavior of Arterial Tissue

TL;DR

This study combines experimental and numerical methods to characterize the viscoelastic behavior of arterial tissue, providing a comprehensive model that captures spatial and directional variability relevant for clinical applications.

Contribution

It introduces a viscoelastic anisotropic model for arterial tissue, validated through experiments and digital image correlation, advancing understanding of arterial mechanics.

Findings

The VA model accurately captures arterial tissue viscoelasticity.

Experimental data supports the model's ability to describe tissue behavior.

Numerical simulations reveal spatial and directional variability in arterial mechanics.

Abstract

The viscoelastic properties of arterial tissue dictate vessel behavior in certain disease states, injury modalities, and during some endovascular procedures. In this study, we characterized the viscoelastic mechanical response of porcine abdominal aortic tissue via uniaxial mechanical experiments on vascular tissue samples coupled with full-field surface strain measurements using the 2-D digital image correlation (DIC) technique. The measured stress relaxation response and intimal surface strain field were used to identify material parameters for a proposed viscoelastic anisotropic (VA) constitutive model of the passive arterial wall. The obtained results show that the VA constitutive model is able to capture the viscoelastic mechanical behavior of the arterial tissue over clinically-relevant time scales. The identified material model and numerical simulations provide a comprehensive description of the passive viscoelastic tissue properties of the arterial wall, and a quantitative understanding of the spatial and directional variability underlying arterial tissue mechanical behavior.