A simulation framework for estimating wall stress distribution of abdominal aortic aneurysm

Abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) rupture is believed to occur when the mechanical stress acting on the wall exceeds the strength of the wall tissue. In endovascular aneurysm repair, a stent-graft in a catheter is released at the aneurysm site to form a new blood vessel and protect the weakened AAA wall from the pulsatile pressure and, hence, possible rupture. In this paper, we propose a framework to estimate the wall stress distribution of non-stented/stented AAA based on fluid-structure interaction, which is utilized in a surgical simulation system (IRAS). The 3D geometric model of AAA is reconstructed from computed tomography angiographic (CTA) images. Based on our experiments, a combined logarithm and polynomial strain energy equation is applied to model the elastic properties of arterial wall. The blood flow is modeled as laminar, incompressible, and non-Newtonian flow by applying Navier-Stokes equation. The obtained pressure of blood flow is applied as load on the AAA meshes with and without stent-graft and the wall stress distribution is calculated by fluid-structure interaction (FSI) solver equipped in ANSYS. Experiments demonstrate that our analytical results are consistent with clinical observations.