Background: Marfan syndrome (MFS) is a genetic disorder of the connective tissue. It most prominently influences the skeletal, cardiovascular, and ocular systems, but all fibrous connective tissue throughout the body can be affected as well.
Objective: This study aims to investigate a realistic three-dimensional model of an aorta of a specific patient suffering from MFS by considering elastic and hyperelastic materials for the tissue using fluid-structure interaction (FSI).
Methods: Isotropic linear elastic and Mooney-Rivlin hyperelastic assumptions are implemented. Linear and nonlinear mechanical properties of the aneurysmal MFS aortic tissue are derived from an uniaxial experimental test.
Results: Vortex generation in the vicinity of the aneurysm region in both elastic and hyperelastic models and the maximum blood velocity at peak flow time is calculated as 0.517 and 0.533 m/s for the two materials, respectively. The blood pressure is not significantly different between the two models (±8 Pa) and the blood pressure difference between the points in the horizontal plane of the aneurysm region is obtained as ±10 Pa for both models. The maximum von Mises stress for the hyperelastic model (2.19 MPa) is 27% more than the elastic one (1.72 MPa) and takes place at the inner curvature and upper part of the aorta and somehow far from the aneurysm region. The wall shear stress (WSS) is also considered for the elastic and hyperelastic assumptions, which is 36.7 Pa for both elastic and hyperelastic models.
Conclusion: The aneurysm region in the MFS affects the blood flow and causes the vortex to be generated which consequently affects the blood flow in the downstream by adding some perturbations to the blood flow. The WSS is obtained to be lower in the aneurysm region compared to other regions which indicated vascular remodeling.
Keywords: Marfan syndrome; fluid-structure interaction; hyperelastic; von Mises stress; wall shear stress.