Modelling volumetric growth in a thick walled fibre reinforced artery

A novel framework for simulating growth and remodelling (G&R) of a fibre-reinforced artery, including volumetric adaption, is proposed. We show how to implement this model into a finite element framework and propose and examine two underlying assumptions for modelling growth, namely constant individual density (CID) or adaptive individual density (AID). Moreover, we formulate a novel approach which utilises a combination of both AID and CID to simulate volumetric G&R for a tissue composed of several different constituents. We consider a special case of the G&R of an artery subjected to prescribed elastin degradation and we theorise on the assumptions and suitability of CID, AID and the mixed approach for modelling arterial biology. For simulating the volumetric changes that occur during aneurysm enlargement, we observe that it is advantageous to describe the growth of collagen using CID whilst it is preferable to model the atrophy of elastin using AID.