Three-dimensional anisotropic unified continuum model for simulating the healing of damaged soft biological tissues.

Abstract

The soft biological tissues have the ability to heal and self-repair after damage or injury. During the healing process, damaged tissues are replaced by newly produced undamaged tissue to restore homeostasis. Computational modeling serves as an effective tool for simulating the healing process and understanding the underlying mechanisms. In previous work, we developed the first unified continuum damage model for the healing of soft biological tissues. However, the initial theory lacked generalizability to more realistic scenarios and applicability to biomechanical problems due to the simplicity of the isotropic constitutive model and two-dimensional simulations. Therefore, we further improve our approach by developing a three-dimensional anisotropic unified healing model to address more realistic challenges. By using the Holzapfel-Gasser-Ogden model as the hyperelastic term, the influence of the collagen fibers is considered and the reorientation of fibers in healing is simulated. Three numerical examples related to hypertension, aneurysm, and restenosis of the atherosclerotic artery after balloon angioplasty are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model. By comparing numerical solutions and reference solutions, we demonstrate the ability of the proposed model in simulating long-term tissue healing process and analyze the impact of anisotropic terms.