A theory for the static elastic behavior of blood vessels

Abstract

A theory is presented for determining all of the parameters required to describe the elastic behavior of blood vessels under any static loading. Selected specimens of fresh excised human and canine arteries have been tested in the laboratory and their elastic behavior determined by the theory presented.

The results indicate that, for all specimens tested, the arterial wall behaves as a nonlinear, homogeneous, anisotropic,1

¹

An anisotropic material is one whose elastic constants are directionally dependent; that is, it is one which possesses a different modulus of elasticity, Poisson’s ratio, and shear modulus along each of the three orthogonal axes.

compressible material and can be described by six elastic constants for each level of strain. Both the circumferential and the axial stiffness are found to increase with internal pressure, and both approach the value for the collagenous fibres at very high internal pressure and axial weight, respectively. The radial stiffness is the smallest of the three and is found to be essentially independent of either internal pressure or axial loading.