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This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) All Versions of this Article: 293/4/H2355    most recent 00423.2007v1 Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Web of Science (2) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Zhang, W. Articles by Kassab, G. S. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Zhang, W. Articles by Kassab, G. S.

Viscoelasticity reduces the dynamic stresses and strains in the vessel wall: implications for vessel fatigue

Departments of ¹Biomedical Engineering, ²Surgery, and ³Cellular and Integrative Physiology, Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis, Indianapolis, Indiana

Submitted 5 April 2007 ; accepted in final form 22 June 2007

The mechanical behavior of blood vessels is known to be viscoelastic rather than elastic. The functional role of viscoelasticity, however, has remained largely unclear. The hypothesis of this study is that viscoelasticity reduces the stresses and strains in the vessel wall, which may have a significant impact on the fatigue life of the blood vessel wall. To verify the hypothesis, the pulsatile stress in rabbit thoracic artery at physiological loading condition was investigated with a quasi-linear viscoelastic model, where the normalized stress relaxation function is assumed to be isotropic, while the stress-strain relationship is anisotropic and nonlinear. The artery was subjected to the same boundary condition, and the mechanical equilibrium equation was solved for both the viscoelastic and an elastic (which has a constant relaxation function) model. Numerical results show that, compared with purely elastic response, the viscoelastic property of arteries reduces the magnitudes and temporal variations of circumferential stress and strain. The radial wall movement is also reduced due to viscoelasticity. These findings imply that viscoelasticity may be beneficial for the fatigue life of blood vessels, which undergo millions of cyclic mechanical loadings each year of life.

artery; cyclic loading; fatigue life; viscoelastic

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