A patient based approach for fluid structure interaction in ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysms

Fluid structure interaction (FSI) simulations were conducted to assess the risk of rupture in reconstructed AAA from patients who had contained ruptured AAAs. The goal was to test to ability of our FSI methodology to predict the location of rupture, by correlating the high wall stress regions with the actual rupture location. We also present a parametric study in which the relationship of iliac bifurcation angle and the role of embedded calcifications were studied in respect to the aneurismal wall stress. The patient specific AAA FSI simulations were carried out with advanced constitutive material models of the various components of AAA, including models that describe the wall anisotropy, structural strength based on collagen fibers orientation within the arterial wall, AAA intraluminal thrombus (ILT), and embedded calcifications. The anisotropic material model used to describe the wall properties closely correlated with experimental results of AAA specimens [1]. The results demonstrate that the region of rupture can be predicted by the region of the highest wall stress distribution. Embedded wall calcifications increase the local wall stress surrounding calcified spots, and eventually increases the risk of rupture. FSI results in streamlined AAA geometries show that the maximum stress on the aneurismal wall increases as the iliac bifurcation angle increases.