Isotropic versus anisotropic growth description for abdominal aortic aneurysm evolution

Motivated by the lack of experimental data, we investigate the influence of different growth kinematics on the abdominal aortic aneurysm growth. We model the tissue’s mechanical response by a microstructure-motivated material law. The mass changes of the constituents are governed by growth and remodeling algorithms. The tissue volume change is computed from the volume changes of individual constituents. We consider four different volume growth assumptions: no volume growth (NVG), isotropic (IVG), in-plane (PVG) and in-thickness (TVG). The results suggest that NVG and TVG are most suitable for modeling aneurysm growth, while IVG and PVG produced unrealistic results.