Stress distribution analysis in healthy and stenosed carotid artery models reconstructed from in vivo ultrasonography

Figures

• 

  Fig. 1.. A motorized propelling probe and its holder designed for recording sequential transverse images.

• 

  Fig. 2.. Four areas selected around the lumen. A. Transverse section of a healthy model for mean stress calculation is shown. B-D. Three transverse sections passing through the proximal shoulder (B), the throat (C), and the distal shoulder (D) for a stenosed carotid artery model are shown.

• 

  Fig. 3.. The contour set that resulted from consecutive transverse ultrasound images. A, B. Media-adventitia interface of a healthy carotid artery (A) and the artery wall borders and plaque components of a stenosed carotid (B) are shown. C. The contour set was extracted from the arterial images.

• 

  Fig. 4.. Validate the model to simulate the physiological cyclic behavior of the artery. Radial displacement waveforms (A, C, E) and correlation curve of the carotid artery (B, D, F) were resulted from ultrasound image processing and a finite element model of a healthy carotid artery (A, B), a less than 50% stenosed carotid artery (C, D), and a more than 50% stenosed carotid artery (E, F).

• 

  Fig. 5.. The effective stress distribution of the carotid artery. The effective stress distribution in a longitudinal slice of a healthy carotid model (A) and a stenosed carotid model (B) is shown.

• 

  Fig. 6.. The extremum effective stress in the carotid artery model at the thinnest and thickest parts of the wall is extracted. The location of extremum effective stress in a healthy carotid artery model (A) and at somewhere other than the extremum thickness (B) is observed. There are the location of the extremum effective stress in a stenosed carotid artery in the extremum wall thickness (C) and at a location other than extremum wall thickness (D). The minimum effective stress located in the lipid pool of a transverse section of the less than 50% stenosis (E) and the more than 50% stenosis (F) carotid artery model are shown.

• 

  Fig. 7.. The stress distribution of the transverse section is extracted. The effective stress distribution of three transverse sections containing calcification of the carotid artery with mild stenosis, at the proximal shoulder (A), the throat (B), and the distal shoulder (C) are shown.

• 

  Fig. 8.. Principal stress and the circumferential stress estimated from transverse sections of the model. Circumferential (A) and principal (B) stress distributions in a transverse section show the similarity of the distributions.