A structural approach including the behavior of collagen cross-links to model patient-specific human carotid arteries

In this work the mechanical response of the carotid arterial wall is studied. Some limitations of previous models of the arterial wall are overcomed and variability of the fitting problem is reduced. We review some experimental data from the literature and provide a constitutive model to characterize such data. A strain energy function is introduced including the behavior of cross-links between the main collagen fibers. With this function we are able to fit experimental data including information about the microstructure that previous models were not able to do. To demonstrate the applicability of the proposed model a patient-specific carotid artery geometry is reconstructed and simulated in a finite element framework, providing a microstructural description of the arterial wall. Our results qualitatively and quantitatively describe the experimental findings given in the literature fitting macroscopic mechanical tests and improving the features of previously developed models.