Compliant biomechanics of abdominal aortic aneurysms: A fluid-structure interaction study

Abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) rupture is believed to represent the culmination of a complex mechanism partially driven by the forces exerted along the lumen. In the present investigation, partially and fully coupled fluid-structure interaction (FSI) computations of three patient-specific AAA models are presented. This work advances previous FSI studies by including the iliac bifurcation and localized intraluminal thrombus. Among the patient models analyzed in this investigation, the FSI resulted in a maximum wall stress that varied 3-25% from the stress obtained with computational solid stress methods, demonstrating the importance of modeling blood flow for the assessment of AAA wall mechanics. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.