Evaluation of Hemodynamics in a Prestressed and Compliant Tapered Femoral Artery Using an Optimization-Based Inverse Algorithm.

The important factors that affect the arterial wall compliance are the tissue properties of the arterial wall, the in vivo pulsatile pressure, and the prestressed condition of the artery. It is necessary to obtain the load-free geometry for determining the physiological level of prestress in the arterial wall. The previously developed optimization-based inverse algorithm was improved to obtain the load-free geometry and the wall prestress of an idealized tapered femoral artery of a dog under varying arterial wall properties. The compliance of the artery was also evaluated over a range of systemic pressures (72.5-140.7 mmHg), associated blood flows, and artery wall properties using the prestressed arterial geometry. The results showed that the computed load-free outer diameter at the inlet of the tapered artery was 6.7%, 9.0%, and 12% smaller than the corresponding in vivo diameter for the 25% softer, baseline, and 25% stiffer arterial wall properties, respectively. In contrast, the variations in the prestressed geometry and circumferential wall prestress were less than 2% for variable arterial wall properties. The computed compliance at the inlet of the prestressed artery for the baseline arterial wall property was 0.34%, 0.19%, and 0.13% diameter change/mmHg for time-averaged pressures of 72.5, 104.1, and 140.7 mmHg, respectively. However, the variation in compliance due to the change in arterial wall property was less than 6%. The load-free and prestressed geometries of the idealized tapered femoral artery were accurately (error within 1.2% of the in vivo geometry) computed under variable arterial wall properties using the modified inverse algorithm. Based on the blood-arterial wall interaction results, the arterial wall compliance was influenced significantly by the change in average pressure. In contrast, the change in arterial wall property did not influence the arterial wall compliance.