Linear and nonlinear viscoelastic modeling of ovine aortic biomechanical properties under in vivo and ex vivo conditions

This study uses linear and nonlinear viscoelastic models to describe the dynamic distention of the aorta induced by time-varying arterial blood pressure. We employ an inverse mathematical modeling approach on a four-parameter (linear) Kelvin viscoelastic model and two five-parameter nonlinear viscoelastic models (arctangent and sigmoid) to infer vascular biomechanical properties under in vivo and ex vivo experimental conditions in ten and eleven male Merino sheep, respectively. We used the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) as a goodness-of-fit measure. Results show that under both experimental conditions, the nonlinear models generally outperform the linear Kelvin model, as judged by the AIC. Furthermore, the sigmoid nonlinear viscoelastic model consistently achieves the lowest AIC and also matches the zero-stress vessel radii measured ex vivo. Based on these observations, we conclude that the sigmoid nonlinear viscoelastic model best describes the biomechanical properties of ovine large arteries under both experimental conditions considered in this study.