| Description |
Defining the biomechanics of human cerebral vasculature is an important step towards a complete understanding of traumatic brain injury. This is, however, very difficult, because of the complex structure of cerebral arteries. One of the factors that enhances the complexity of the arteries is the high level of branching observed in them. The effect of the branching on the mechanical properties of the arteries is unknown. Previous efforts to define the influence of branches have been hampered by difficulties with test setup and a single camera view of specimen deformations. This work focused on overcoming these challenges but also implemented a number of general improvements to the current testing system. In particular, hardware and software changes were made to the existing test setup to synchronize video and data acquisition. A fixture has also been designed to simplify the branch test setup, and a dual camera system has also been integrated with existing hardware and software to provide for full three-dimensional (3D) evaluation of specimen motion. A three-dimensional Direct Linear Transformation (DLT) approach was designed to reconstruct the deformation of a branched blood vessel during isolated testing. These advancements were tested on a rat femoral artery with a prominent branch. The results suggest that the model can be successfully used to study human branched cerebral arteries. |
