The mechanical properties of porcine coronary arteries determined with a mixed experimental-numerical approach

Mechanical characterization of the coronary arterial wall isimportant for several reasons. Mechanical factors play an importantrole in the development of atherosclerosis [1]. Atheroscleroticcoronary arteries may be treated mechanically with interventions likePTCA and stent implantation, 1265000 PTCA procedures wereperformed in the United States in 2005 [2]. Furthermore, knowledge ofthe mechanical properties of the arterial wall is important for modelingof the coronary circulation and explaining its hemodynamics.In many studies it has been observed that the coronary arterialwall is anisotropic and has a highly non-linear stress-strain relationship[3-5]. A widely used method to measure this anisotropic non-linearbehavior is to measure the response of the arterial wall when subjectedto simultaneous inflation and axial extension [5]. Figure 1 shows acharacteristic result obtained with an ex vivo experiment on a porcineLAD (C.N. van den Broek, unpublished data). It shows the non-linearrelationship between intra-arterial pressure and vessel radius (left) andintra-arterial pressure and axial force (right) for three different axialstretches.