This work is devoted to the development of
a mathematical model of the early stages of atherosclerosis
incorporating processes of all time scales of the
disease and to show their interactions. The cardiovascular
mechanics is modeled by a fluid-structure interaction
approach coupling a non-Newtonian fluid to a hyperelastic
solid undergoing anisotropic growth and a change of
its constitutive equation. Additionally, the transport of
low-density lipoproteins and its penetration through the
endothelium is considered by a coupled set of advection-diffusion-
reaction equations. Thereby, the permeability
of the endothelium is wall-shear stress modulated resulting
in a locally varying accumulation of foam cells
triggering a novel growth and remodeling formulation.
The model is calibrated and applied to an murinespecific
case study and a qualitative validation of the
computational results is performed. The model is utilized
to further investigate the influence of the pulsatile blood
flow and the compliance of the artery wall to the atherosclerotic
process. The computational results imply
that the pulsatile blood flow is crucial, whereas the
compliance of the aorta has only a minor influence on
atherosclerosis. Further, it is shown that the novel model
is capable to produce a narrowing of the vessel lumen
inducing an adaption of the endothelial permeability
pattern.
«
This work is devoted to the development of
a mathematical model of the early stages of atherosclerosis
incorporating processes of all time scales of the
disease and to show their interactions. The cardiovascular
mechanics is modeled by a fluid-structure interaction
approach coupling a non-Newtonian fluid to a hyperelastic
solid undergoing anisotropic growth and a change of
its constitutive equation. Additionally, the transport of
low-density lipoproteins and its penetration through the...
»