A novel technique for the assessment of mechanical properties of vascular tissue

Fig. 1. Schematic overview of the methodology. This study is focussed on the ring-inflation experimental part. The images of the plaques were kindly provided by Dr. F. Gijsen from the Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, the Netherlands

Fig. 2. Schematic overview of the experimental set-up

Fig. 3. Photograph of the ring-inflation set-up. The tip of the pressure wire is positioned in the lumen of the carotid sample

Fig. 4. a Pressure input for the model. b Model output showing the lumen diameter over time using four different coefficients of friction (COFs)

Fig. 5. Pressure–diameter curves obtained from the ring-inflation experiment, using five different axial compression levels. The horizontal black dashed lines depict the normal physiological blood pressure of 80–120 mmHg

Fig. 6. Photograph of the vessel-inflation set-up. The ultrasound probe recorded the displacements of the carotid sample during inflation by the pump

Fig. 7. a Pressure–diameter curves from the ring-inflation experiment (solid lines) and corresponding model results (dashed lines) for four rubber samples. b Stress–stretch curves from the tensile test experiment (solid lines) and model results (dashed lines) for four rubber samples

Fig. 8. Box and whisker plot of the stiffness (\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$c_1$$\end{document}c1) estimation of the rubber in the inflation and tensile tests

Fig. 9. Pressure–diameter curves for the three repeated measurements of the four different arteries. a Raw data vessel-inflation experiment. b Raw data ring-inflation experiment

Fig. 10. Comparison between the vessel- and ring-inflation experiments for two samples. The model (black dots) is fitted on the raw vessel-inflation (black solid line) and raw ring-inflation data (grey solid line). The grey dashed line shows the model result using the vessel-inflation parameters with the ring-inflation boundary conditions. The black dashed line shows the model result using the ring-inflation parameters with the vessel-inflation boundary conditions