Modelling Mechanical Properties in Native and Biomimetically Formed Vascular Grafts

The paper presents a detailed analysis of experimental data in order to characterize the elastic properties of arteries. Such analysis would provide a good basis for evaluation of biomimetic vascular grafts. Since the latter needs to exhibit similar properties of native tissue, it is important to accurately characterize the biomimetic sample in a large range of applied stresses. The stress-strain properties vary according to the specific pathology (e.g. arteriosclerosis, aneurism) and the tissue graft must be chosen correctly. Two models are proposed in this paper on the stress-strain characteristics. An extension for frequency-domain analysis is provided for one of the models. The comparison between vascular grafts and native tissue for carotid and thoracic arteries in pigs are in good agreement with results from literature. The proposed experimental method offers suitable parameters for identifying models which characterize both elasticity and stiffness properties of the analyzed tissues (stress-strain). The proposed models show good performance in characterizing the intrinsic material properties.