Numerical Study of Delamination through Human Aortic Media Using Cohesive Elements and Two Different Material Laws:

Linear Elastic and Hyperelastic

B. Merei1, S. Avril1, P. Badel1, M. A. Sutton2, and S. M. Lessner2 1 Ecole Nationale Suprieure des Mines, St.-Etienne, France, 2University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC

Introduction: The separation of arterial layers is a mechanical process that plays an important role in several acute cardiovascular pathologies, including arterial dissections and detachment of atherosclerotic plaques. Delamination is the predominant form of separation in laminated composites (R. G Wang. 2011). In an experimental study of delamination of mouse atherosclerotic plaques, delamination occurred at the interface between plaque and internal elastic lamina (Y. Wang et al. 2011). Our goal is to make a comparative study using a numerical 2D model of the human aorta, with either linear elastic or neo-Hookean hyperelastic properties, and varying cohesive parameters, to gain a better understanding of delamination through the media. Materials and Methods: The model used for simulations is a 2D human aorta, 30mm long, 2mm in wall thickness, with the media making up the upper two-thirds and the adventitita the lower third of the vessel wall. The media itself is composed of two layers of equal thickness, separated by a thin layer of cohesive elements (0.04 mm), defining an upper part (media) and lower part (adventitia and media). One end edge (right) is fixed and a boundary condition of vertical displacement is applied to the other end: +2 mm (upper media), and -2mm (lower media and adventitia). In the first simulation, mechanical properties are linear elastic. For the media and adventitia, Poisson ratios of 0.4 and 0.47 and Young's moduli of 0.078MPa and 0.06Mpa, respectively, were assumed. In the second case, neo-Hookean hyperelastic mechanical properties are used with constitutive parameter values: = 0.02 MPa for the adventitia and 0.028 MPa for the media, and D = 5.12 MPa-1 for the adventitia and 14.28 MPa-1 for the media. The assumed cohesive zone law is a bilinear function law, and we used two sets of cohesive parameters for the linear elastic material. Results and Discussion: Figure 1-a shows the delaminated vessel wall at the end of the delamination process. The forcedisplacement function for the master node where we applied the displacement boundary condition has a similar shape for both material models (Figure 1-b): increased force vs. displacement, followed by a gradual decrease from the maximum force to a minimum when the delamination is completed (displacement = 2.5mm). The maximum force to initiate the delamination is slightly higher (about 5%) in the linear case than in the Neo-Hookean hyperelastic case. Figure 1-c shows that the choice of cohesive zone parameters has a much greater effect on the force necessary to initiate and to propagate the delamination, for the same linear elastic material. These results suggest that identifying the correct cohesive zone parameters by inverse analysis will be more important than the choice of material model in fitting experimental force-displacement and energy release data.

Figure 1: a- Delaminated media at end of simulation b- Force-displacement curves for linear elastic case (blue curve) and hyperelastic case (red curve) c- Force-displacement curves for 2 cohesive parameter sets. Conclusions: This study aims to model the propagation of dissection through the arterial media using cohesive elements as an interface in the delamination plane, comparing two different material models (linear elastic and hyperelastic). Simulations have shown that both material models yield similarly-shaped response curves (force vs. displacement). The linear elastic model provides a good estimate of the force required to propagate the delamination, suggesting that this model will be sufficient to match experimental delamination data with the proper choice of cohesive law.The cohesive element technique for the study of delamination can be subsequently adopted for the study of processes related to mechanical detachment of atherosclerotic plaques or arterial dissections. References: Wang RG, et al, Comp. Matl. Sci. 50 (2010) 20-31; Wang Y, et al, J. Biomech. 44 (2011) 243945