Mechanics of the human femoral adventitia including the high-pressure response.
Adventitial mechanics were studied on the basis of adventitial tube tests and associated stress analyses utilizing a thin-walled model. Inflation tests of 11 nonstenotic human femoral arteries (79.3 +/- 8.2 yr, means +/- SD) were performed during autopsy. Adventitial tubes were separated anatomically and underwent cyclic, quasistatic extension-inflation tests using physiological pressures and high pressures up to 100 kPa. Associated circumferential and axial stretches were typically <20%, indicating "adventitiosclerosis." Adventitias behaved nearly elastically for both loading domains, demonstrating high tensile strengths (>1 MPa). The anisotropic and strongly nonlinear mechanical responses were represented appropriately by two-dimensional Fung-type stored-energy functions. At physiological pressure (13.3 kPa), adventitias carry ~25% of the pressure load in situ, whereas their circumferential and axial stresses were similar to the total wall stresses (~50 kPa in both directions), supporting a "uniform stress hypothesis." At higher pressures, they became the mechanically predominant layer, carrying >50% of the pressure load. These significant load-carrying capabilities depended strongly on circumferential and axial in-vessel prestretches (mean values: 0.95 and 1.08). On the basis of these results, the mechanical role of the adventitia at physiological and hypertensive states and during balloon angioplasty was characterized.
Schulze-Bauer
Christian A J
CA
Institute for Structural Analysis, Computational Biomechanics, Graz University of Technology, 8010 Graz, 8035 Graz, Austria. csb@biomech.tu-graz.ac.at
Regitnig
Peter
P
Holzapfel
Gerhard A
GA
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D004548:Elasticity; D005263:Femoral Artery / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008433:Mathematics; D011312:Pressure; D013314:Stress, Mechanical; D013718:Tensile Strength