This is an actual human abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) that was three
dimensionally reconstructed from helical CT scan image data with the use
NIH-Image and PRO-Engineer.
The material behavior of AAA wall was described by a hyperelastic material
model, developed by us (manuscript submitted). Upon application of systolic
blood pressure, the software, ANSYS
was utilized to compute via the finite element method (FEA), the distribution
of stress on the AAA wall.
Notice that the maximal stresses are on the order of 30 N/cm2.
We have reported (Raghavan et al., 1996; Vorp et al., 1996) that the strength
of AAA is typically 60 N/cm2. Also notice that the wall
stresses are complexly distributed, with distinct regions of comparatively
high and low wall stress.