Definition of principal material directions at irregular arterial shapes

Abstract eng:
For computational modelling of arterial tissues anisotropic constitutive models are preferred for which knowledge on orientation of fibres (principal material directions) is needed. In this paper the impact of different approaches to definition of principal material directions in an anisotropic model of arterial wall is evaluated. Finite element models of different regular shapes were created, as well as two idealized geometries of aortic aneurysms as examples of irregular shapes. In those geometries, difference in maximum principal stresses in the arterial wall was used for evaluation of impact of uncertainty in the principal directions. It was shown that for a cylindric shape the error is negligible but it increases for more irregular geometries. For an asymmetric aortic aneurysm the impact of different orientations of principal material directions was more than 20% which shows that the uncertainty in orientation of principal material directions may cause significant errors deteriorating completely the advantage of anisotropic material description.

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