Modeling the propagation of arterial dissection

Arterial dissections are frequently observed in clinical practice and during road traffic accidents. In particular, the lamellarly arrangement of elastin, collagen, in addition to smooth muscle cells in the middle arterial layer, the media, favors dissection failure. Experimental studies and related biomechanical models are rare in the literature. Finite strain kinematics is employed, and the discontinuity in the displacement field accounts for tissue separation. Dissection is regarded as a gradual process in which separation between incipient material surfaces is resisted by cohesive traction. Two variational statements together with their consistent linearizations form the basis for a finite element implementation. We combine the cohesive crack concept with the partition of unity finite element method, where nodal degrees of freedom adjacent to the discontinuity are enhanced. The developed continuum mechanical and numerical frameworks allow the analysis of the propagation of dissections within general nonlinear boundary-value problems, where the constitutive description for the continuous and the cohesive material is considered independent from each other. The continuous material is modeled as a fiber-reinforced composite with the fibers corresponding to the collagenous component which are assumed to be embedded in a non-collagenous isotropic groundmatrix. Dispersion of the collagen fiber orientation is considered in a continuum sense by one structure parameter. A novel cohesive potential per unit undeformed area is used to derive a traction separation law appropriate for the description of the mechanical properties of medial dissection. The cohesive stiffness contribution to the element stiffness matrix is explicitly derived. In particular, the dissection propagation of a rectangular strip of a human aortic media is investigated. Cohesive material properties are quantified by comparing the experimentally measured load with the computed dissection load.