A generic constitutive model for the passive porcine coronary artery

Constitutive models describing the arterial mechanical behavior are important in the development of catheterization products, to be used in arteries with a specific radius. To prove the possible existence of a constitutive model that, provided with a generic set of material and geometric parameters, is able to predict the radius-specific mechanical behavior of a coronary artery, the passive pressure–inner radius (P–r _i ) and pressure–axial force change (P–ΔF _z ) relations of seven porcine left anterior descending coronary arteries were measured in an in-vitro set-up and fitted with the model of Driessen et al. in J Biomech Eng 127(3):494–503 (2005), Biomech Model Mechanobiol 7(2):93–103 (2008). Additionally, the collagen volume fraction, physiological axial pre-stretch, and wall thickness to inner radius ratio at physiological loading were determined for each artery. From this, two generic parameter sets, each comprising four material and three geometric parameters, were obtained. These generic sets were used to compute the deformation of each tested artery using a single radius measurement at physiological loading as an artery-specific input. Artery-specific P–r _i and P–ΔF _z relations were predicted with an accuracy of 32 μm (2.3%) and 6 mN (29% relative to ΔF _z -range) on average compared to the relations measured in-vitro. It was concluded that the constitutive model provided with the generic parameters found in this study can well predict artery-specific mechanical behavior.