Modelling of residually stressed materials with application to AAA.

Abstract

Residual stresses are generated in living tissues by processes of growth and adaptation and they significantly influence the mechanical behaviour of the tissues. Thus, to effectively model the elastic response of the tissues relative to a residually stressed configuration the residual stresses need to be incorporated into the constitutive equations. The purposes of this paper are (a) to summarise a general elastic constitutive formulation that includes residual stress, (b) to specify the tensors needed for the three-dimensional implementation of the theory in a nonlinear finite element code, and (c) to use the theory and its implementation to evaluate the wall stress distribution in an abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) using patient specific geometry and material model parameters. The considered material is anisotropic with two preferred directions indicating the orientation of the collagen fibres in the aortic tissue. The method described in this paper is general and can be used, by specifying appropriate energy functions, to investigate other residually stressed biological systems.