Simulation of deformation, damage and residual stresses in arterial walls

Abstract

The numerical simulation of arterial walls is important for analyzing what happens during balloon angioplasty and may help to optimize methods of treatment. A variety of suitable material models exist for the description of deformations in the physiological domain which also satisfy some important mathematical conditions such as polyconvexity or ellipticity. In addition there are approaches to model residual stresses and anisotropic damage due to supra-physiological deformations. In this contribution an extended damage model is proposed for the incorporation of softening hysteresis observed in cyclic supra-physiological uniaxial tension tests. Furthermore, numerical results are given, where the distribution of damage due to overstretching an atherosclerotic artery can be analyzed. © 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA,.