Computational modeling of passive myocardium (original) (raw)

Orthotropic active strain models for the numerical simulation of cardiac biomechanics

International Journal For Numerical Methods in Biomedical Engineering, 2012

A model for the active deformation of cardiac tissue considering orthotropic constitutive laws is introduced and studied. In particular, the passive mechanical properties of the myocardium are described by the Holzapfel-Ogden relation, whereas the activation model is based on the concept of active strain. There, an incompatible intermediate configuration is considered, which entails a multiplicative decomposition between active and passive deformation gradients. The underlying Euler-Lagrange equations for minimizing the total energy are written in terms of these deformation factors, where the active part is assumed to depend, at the cell level, on the electrodynamics and on the specific orientation of the cardiomyocytes. The active strain formulation is compared with the classical active stress model from both numerical and modeling perspectives. The well-posedness of the linear system derived from a generic Newton iteration of the original problem is analyzed, and different mechanical activation functions are considered. Taylor-Hood and MINI finite elements are used in the discretization of the overall mechanical problem. The results of several numerical experiments show that the proposed formulation is mathematically consistent and is able to represent the main features of the phenomenon, while allowing savings in computational costs. Copyright 762 S. ROSSI ET AL.

Nonlinear Incompressible Finite Element for Simulating Loading of Cardiac Tissue—Part II: Three Dimensional Formulation for Thick Ventricular Wall Segments

A three dimensional incompressible and geometrically as well as materially nonlinear finite element is formulated for future implementation in models of cardiac mechanics. The stress-strain relations in the finite element are derived from a recently proposed constitutive law which is based on the histological composition of the myocardium. The finite element is formulated for large deformations and considers incompressibility by introducing the hydrostatic pressure as an additional variable. The results of passive loading cases simulated by this element allow to analyze the mechanical properties of ventricular wall segments, the main of which are that the circumferential direction is stiffer than the longitudinal one, that its shear stiffness is considerably lower than its tensile and compressive stiffness, and that, due to its mechanically prominent role, the collagenous matrix may affect the myocardial perfusion.

An orthotropic viscoelastic model for the passive myocardium: continuum basis and numerical treatment

Computer methods in biomechanics and biomedical engineering, 2016

This study deals with the viscoelastic constitutive modeling and the respective computational analysis of the human passive myocardium. We start by recapitulating the locally orthotropic inner structure of the human myocardial tissue and model the mechanical response through invariants and structure tensors associated with three orthonormal basis vectors. In accordance with recent experimental findings the ventricular myocardial tissue is assumed to be incompressible, thick-walled, orthotropic and viscoelastic. In particular, one spring element coupled with Maxwell elements in parallel endows the model with viscoelastic features such that four dashpots describe the viscous response due to matrix, fiber, sheet and fiber-sheet fragments. In order to alleviate the numerical obstacles, the strictly incompressible model is altered by decomposing the free-energy function into volumetric-isochoric elastic and isochoric-viscoelastic parts along with the multiplicative split of the deformati...

Nonlinear Incompressible Finite Element for Simulating Loading of Cardiac Tissue—Part I: Two Dimensional Formulation for Thin Myocardial Strips

Journal of Biomechanical Engineering, 1988

A two-dimensional incompressible plane-stress finite element is formulated for the simulation of the passive-state mechanics of thin myocardial strips. The formulation employs a total Lagrangian and materially nonlinear approach, being based on a recently proposed structural material law, which is derived from the histological composition of the tissue. The ensuing finite element allows to demonstrate the mechanical properties of a single myocardial layer containing uniformly directed fibers by simulating various loading cases such as tension, compression and shear. The results of these cases show that the fiber direction is considerably stiffer than the cross-fiber direction, that there is significant coupling between these two directions, and that the shear stiffness of the tissue is lower than its tensile and compressive stiffness.

A numerical model of elasticity for cardiovascular system that includes 2/3D displacements and deformations

International Journal for Simulation and Multidisciplinary Design Optimization, 2020

In this work, we deal an elasticity model in 2D and 3D dimension for deformation under constraint by taking into account the direction of the deformation displacement. This work is a result of an article [A. Azzayani et al., Br. J. Math. Comput. Sci. (2016)] in which we use the same mathematical model by fixing the fiber orientation. Then, if we considered the case of eignvalue and eigenvector, and which is the case of this work, we can be able to control the deformation of the heart in the image processing. This mathematical model can be used to describe the heart deformation taking into account the orientation of the fibers for estimating global and regional parameters of the left ventricular function. In first, we start by presenting the proposed mathematical model on a domain Ω ⊂ ℝn (n = 2 or 3), and we give the existence and uniqueness of solution to the mathematical model is given (in both 2D and 3D dimension). Secondly, we give numerical simulations with FreeFem software, sim...

A robust anisotropic hyperelastic formulation for the modelling of soft tissue

The Holzapfel–Gasser–Ogden (HGO) model for anisotropic hyperelastic behaviour of collagen fibre reinforced materials was initially developed to describe the elastic properties of arterial tissue, but is now used extensively for modelling a variety of soft biological tissues. Such materials can be regarded as incompressible, and when the incompressibility condition is adopted the strain energy Ψ of the HGO model is a function of one isotropic and two anisotropic deformation invariants. A compressible form (HGO-C model) is widely used in finite element simulations whereby the isotropic part of Ψ is decoupled into volumetric and isochoric parts and the anisotropic part of Ψ is expressed in terms of isochoric invariants. Here, by using three simple deformations (pure dilatation, pure shear and uniaxial stretch), we demonstrate that the compressible HGO-C formulation does not correctly model compressible anisotropic material behaviour, because the anisotropic component of the model is insensitive to volumetric deformation due to the use of isochoric anisotropic invariants. In order to correctly model compressible anisotropic behaviour we present a modified anisotropic (MA) model, whereby the full anisotropic invariants are used, so that a volumetric anisotropic contribution is represented. The MA model correctly predicts an anisotropic response to hydrostatic tensile loading, whereby a sphere deforms into an ellipsoid. It also computes the correct anisotropic stress state for pure shear and uniaxial deformations. To look at more practical applications, we developed a finite element user-defined material subroutine for the simulation of stent deployment in a slightly compressible artery. Significantly higher stress triaxiality and arterial compliance are computed when the full anisotropic invariants are used (MA model) instead of the isochoric form (HGO-C model).

A displacement-based finite element formulation for incompressible and nearly-incompressible cardiac mechanics

Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering, 2014

This paper presents the nodally integrated plate element (NIPE) formulation for the analysis of laminated composite plates based on the first-order shear deformation theory. The nodally integrated approach aims at providing smoothed derivative quantities by constructing nodal strain-displacement operators. Within this framework a new family of elements for plates with general monoclinic layers is developed: the strain-displacement operators are derived via nodal integration for linear triangles and quadrilateral elements. The degrees of freedom are only the primitive variables: displacements and rotations at the nodes. The NIPEs are locking-free elements, exhibit little sensitivity to geometric distortions and can be readily implemented into existing finite element codes. The efficiency of the proposed variational formulation is proved whereas effectiveness and convergence of the proposed finite elements are confirmed through several numerical applications. Finally, numerical results are compared with the corresponding analytical solutions as well as to other finite-element solutions.

In vivo estimation of passive biomechanical properties of human myocardium

Medical & biological engineering & computing, 2018

Identification of in vivo passive biomechanical properties of healthy human myocardium from regular clinical data is essential for subject-specific modelling of left ventricle (LV). In this work, myocardium was defined by Holzapfel-Ogden constitutive law. Therefore, the objectives of the study were (a) to estimate the ranges of the constitutive parameters for healthy human myocardium using non-invasive routine clinical data, and (b) to investigate the effect of geometry, LV end-diastolic pressure (EDP) and fibre orientations on estimated values. In order to avoid invasive measurements and additional scans, LV cavity volume, measured from routine MRI, and empirical pressure-normalised-volume relation (Klotz-curve) were used as clinical data. Finite element modelling, response surface method and genetic algorithm were used to inversely estimate the constitutive parameters. Due to the ill-posed nature of the inverse optimisation problem, the myocardial properties was extracted by ident...

Material modeling of cardiac valve tissue: Experiments, constitutive analysis and numerical investigation

Journal of biomechanics, 2015

A key element of the cardiac cycle of the human heart is the opening and closing of the four valves. However, the material properties of the leaflet tissues, which fundamentally contribute to determine the mechanical response of the valves, are still an open field of research. The main contribution of the present study is to provide a complete experimental data set for porcine heart valve samples spanning all valve and leaflet types under tensile loading. The tests show a fair degree of reproducibility and are clearly indicative of a number of fundamental tissue properties, including a progressively stiffening response with increasing elongation. We then propose a simple anisotropic constitutive model, which is fitted to the experimental data set, showing a reasonable interspecimen variability. Furthermore, we present a dynamic finite element analysis of the aortic valve to show the direct usability of the obtained material parameters in computational simulations.