AuthorsT. Thorvaldsen, J. Sundnes and H. Osnes
EditorsB. H. Skallerud and H. I. Andersson
TitleA Mixed Formulation for Modeling the Mechanical Bahavior of the Heart
AfilliationScientific Computing, Scientific Computing
StatusPublished
Publication TypeProceedings, refereed
Year of Publication2005
Conference NameMekIt05 - Third national conference om Computational Mechanics, Trondheim May 11-12
Pagination327-341
Date PublishedMay
PublisherTapir Academic Press
Abstract

In this paper we present a mixed finite element formulation for modeling the mechanical behavior of the cardiac tissue. The modeling may be divided into a passive and an active part. The passive properties are in this work described by a transversely isotropic, hyperelastic material model. Moreover, the myocardium is assumed to be almost incompressible. In advanced models the active contraction is strongly connected to electro-physiological processes in the muscle cells. In this paper we simplify the active stress contribution by modeling it as a linear function in time. Due to the fact that the heart muscle undergoes large deformations during contraction, both material and geometrical non-linearities must be taken into account in the analysis. Numerical results are presented for different activation patterns applied to a box-shaped test specimen, which represents a piece of the myocardial wall. The proposed mixed method offers reasonable results in the modeling of the mechanical behavior of the test specimen.

Citation KeyThorvaldsen.2005.2