A central problem in biomechanical studies of personalized human left ventricular (LV) modelling is to estimate material properties from in vivo clinical measurements. In this work we evaluate the passive myocardial mechanical properties inversely from the in vivo LV chamber pressure–volume and strain data. The LV myocardium is described using a structure-based orthotropic Holzapfel–Ogden constitutive law with eight parameters. In the first part of the paper we demonstrate how to use a multi-step non-linear least-squares optimization procedure to inversely estimate the parameters from the pressure–volume and strain data obtained from a synthetic LV model in diastole. In the second part, we show that to apply this procedure to clinical situations with limited in vivo data, additional constraints are required in the optimization procedure. Our study, based on three different healthy volunteers, demonstrates that the parameters of the Holzapfel–Ogden law could be extracted from pressure–volume and strain data with a suitable multi-step optimization procedure. Although the uniqueness of the solution cannot be addressed using our approaches, the material response is shown to be robustly determined.

Abstract-This study investigates the potential correlation between acalculous biliary pain and mechanical stress during the bile-emptying phase. This study is built on the previously developed mathematical model used to estimate stress in the gallbladder wall during emptying [Li, W. G., X. Y. Luo, et al. Comput. Math. Methods Med. 9(1):27-45, 2008]. Although the total stress was correctly predicted using the previous model, the contribution from patient-specific active stress induced by the cholecystokinin (CCK) test was overlooked. In this article, we evaluate both the active and passive components of pressure in a gallbladder, which undergoes isotonic refilling, isometric contraction and emptying during the infusion of CCK. The pressure is estimated from in vivo ultrasonographical scan measurements of gallbladder emptying during CCK tests, assuming that the gallbladder is a thin ellipsoidal membrane. The passive stress is caused by the volume and shape changes during refilling at the gallbladder basal pressure, whereas the active stress arises from the pressure rise during the isometric gallbladder contraction after the CCK infusion. The effect on the stress estimates of the gallbladder to the liver is evaluated to be small by comparing numerical simulations of a gallbladder model with and without a rigid 'flat top' boundary. The model was applied to 51 subjects, and the peak total stress was found to have a strong correlation with the pain stimulated by CCK, as measured by the patient pain score questionnaires. Consistent with our previous study for a smaller sample, it is found that the success rate in predicting of CCK-induced pain is over 75%.

Estimation of biomechanical parameters of soft tissues from noninvasive measurements has clinical significance in patient-specific modeling and disease diagnosis. In this work, we present a quasi-nonlinear method that is used to estimate the elastic moduli of the human gallbladder wall. A forward approach based on a transversely isotropic membrane material model is used, and an inverse iteration is carried out to determine the elastic moduli in the circumferential and longitudinal directions between two successive ultrasound images of gallbladder. The results demonstrate that the human gallbladder behaves in an anisotropic manner, and constitutive models need to incorporate this. The estimated moduli are also nonlinear and patient dependent. Importantly, the peak stress predicted here differs from the earlier estimate from linear membrane theory. As the peak stress inside the gallbladder wall has been found to strongly correlate with acalculous gallbladder pain, reliable mechanical modeling for gallbladder tissue is crucial if this information is to be used in clinical diagnosis.

Mechanical behaviors of artificial elastic tubes are studied to see if the fibre orientation in these vessels is optimal by comparison with those of human artery. By optimal we mean that the strengths of stretching and inflation in the vessels are equally good. Artificial thin film tubes have many applications in the food and fruit packing industry. In this paper, the wall of thin-film elastic tubes is considered as a fibre-reinforced membrane with two families of fibres and a uniform matrix material. Their mechanical properties are determined using a structure-based constitutive law. The constitutive parameters are inversely estimated from two separate uniaxial tensile tests in the circumferential and longitudinal directions. The inflation model for the elastic tubes and human common carotid artery are developed to investigate their breaking characteristics, and to explore the optimal fibre orientations. Results show that the fibre orientation has an important effect on the break behavior of the elastic tubes, and the tubes investigated are much weaker in the circumferential direction. On the other hand, the fibre orientation is close to the optimal state in the human common carotid artery.