Simulation of angioplasty using isogoemetric laminated composite shell elements

Abstract

The typical treatment for the opening of obstructed arteries or veins is balloon angioplasty. Different computational models, which usually use 3D finite solid elements to model the artery, have been introduced in the literature to analyze the angioplasty procedure. In this work, a laminated composite shell formulation derived from the Kirchhoff-Love shell theory is used to model the artery wall. The corresponding shell is formulated on the mid-surface of the artery. As only the surface is discretized, the shell formulation is computationally less expensive than the common 3D solid elements, which require volumetric discretization.