Engineering Power – Vol. 13(1)

18 Oct Engineering Power – Vol. 13(1)

Croatian Academy of Engineering (HATZ)
2018

This issue is dedicated to the scientific work in the field of biomechanical engineering in the Laboratory for Numerical Mechanics at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture, University of Zagreb. Our work concerns modeling of soft tissue behavior, particularly abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs) development. We addressed the problem of intraluminal thrombus enlargement within abdominal aortic aneurysm. Our main goal was to develop a theoretical and computational biochemomechanical model of evolving properties of ILT incorporated into an initially healthy artery. We showed that thrombus-laden lesions can either arrest or rupture depending on the biochemical (e.g., concentration of elastases) and biomechanical (stiffness of fibrin) properties of the ILT. These computational results suggest that ILT should be accounted for when predicting a potential enlargement or rupture risk of AAAs and highlight some specific needs for further experimental and computational research. The scientific work within our group concerned the very first growth and remodelling model that addresses together the mechanobiology, biochemistry, and biomechanics of thrombus-laden AAAs.
The herein presented results are the result of fruitful cooperation with Jay D Humphrey’s group from Yale University, USA, Gerhard Holzapfel’s group from TU Graz, Austria, Seungik Baek from Michigan State University, USA and Ivo Lovričević, Medical School, University of Zagreb. The scientific work in our group was supported by grants from the Croatian Science Foundation project IP-2014-09-7382 and Installation Grant to I. Karšaj.