Mechanical Properties of Aortic Artery by Uniaxial Tensile Tests under Physiological Condition

Abstract

As plenty of study have been done to investigate mechanical properties of arterial tissues from many aspects in order give a full description of the arterial tissues and to promote related clinical development, the mechanical behaviors of arterial tissues under physiological condition did not receive sufficient attention. In this study, we verified the nonlinearity, anisotropy and location dependent mechanical behaviors of porcine thoracic artery through planar uniaxial tests. We focused on the mechanical responses of the artery within the intra-vascular physiological blood pressure range of 60-120mmHg. Through the estimation of the strain and stress within the physiological range and the comparison of the anisotropy index, this study confirmed the anisotropic, location-dependent mechanical behaviors of the aortic tissues. The stiffness of the arterial tissues increases gradually from the proximal end to the distal end. Within the physiological range, the degree of nonlinearity of the arterial tissue is not obvious, although there are certain differences in the value of strain and stiffness of the arterial tissue under physiological condition. The stress range of the physiological range of different locations is relatively similar. We also found that within the range of physiological blood pressure, the degree of anisotropy of arterial tissue increases slightly from the proximal end to the distal end and increases gradually with the increase of blood pressure. Through the above research, this article is expected to increase the knowledge of the mechanical properties of arterial tissue under physiological conditions.