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流固耦合下早期粥样硬化斑块生长动力学数值研究

NUMERICAL INVESTIGATION ON THE GROWTH DYNAMICS OF EARLY ATHEROSCLEROTIC PLAQUE BASED ON THE FLUID-STRUCTURE COUPLING ALGORITHM

  • 摘要: 粥样硬化斑块的生长会显著改变血管几何形态, 引发血流动力学异常, 进而导致脑卒中、缺血性眼病、急性肾衰竭等严重并发症. 现有研究对涉及炎症反应与脂质代谢的早期斑块动态演化机制仍存在认知局限, 亟需建立更精细的生长动力学模型. 本文构建了一套融合早期斑块生长动力学的流固耦合多物理场模型, 可以同时反映脂蛋白浓度扩散、斑块体积膨胀协同作用下的粥样硬化斑块生长, 以及内膜下层变形与血流动力学响应的交互耦合作用. 前者硬化斑块的非线性力学特性采用neo-Hookean本构模型来表征, 并通过将血管壁总的变形梯度分解为弹性和生长两部分来表征斑块的生长; 后者则采用双向迭代耦合算法, 通过位移-应力边界传递机制同步求解血流与内膜的动力学耦合行为. 数值模拟显示模型预测的早期斑块生长形态与临床经验曲线具有高度一致性. 通过定义影响因子A(膨胀/扩散速率比)定量揭示了脂蛋白扩散驱动的膨胀变形对早期斑块尺寸的调控. 同时, 数值模拟结果证实斑块生长过程会通过几何形变改变血流的剪切应力分布, 从而加剧血栓形成的风险, 并给出了血小板活化的临界斑块高度.

     

    Abstract: Hyperplasia of atherosclerotic plaque can induce local hemodynamic abnormalities due to the resultant geometry of the blood vessels changed. This process can lead to serious complications such as stroke, ischemic eye disease, and acute renal failure, among others. The current lack of a deep understanding of early plaque dynamic evolution and its associated mechanisms involved in the inflammatory response and lipid metabolism pathways is still one of the major limitations of existing studies. Therefore, the establishment of a more detailed growth dynamics model is of great significance to enrich our research tools and capabilities. A set of novel fluid-structure coupling multi-physical field model integrating the early plaque growth dynamics was proposed in this work, which can simultaneously reflect the atherosclerotic plaque growth under the synergistic effect of lipoprotein concentration diffusion and plaque volume expansion, as well as the interactive coupling effect of subintimal deformation and hemodynamic response. In particular, the nonlinear mechanical properties of the atherosclerotic plaque were characterized using the neo-Hookean constitutive model. Additionally, the growth of the plaque was characterized by decomposing the total deformation gradient of the vessel wall into elastic and growth parts. Simultaneously, the dynamic coupling behavior between the blood flow and the intima through the displacement-stress boundary transfer mechanism was solved using the bidirectional iterative coupling algorithm. The numerical results showed that the early plaque growth morphology predicted by the model was highly consistent with the clinical experience curve. By defining the influence factor A (expansion/diffusion rate ratio), the regulation of lipoprotein diffusion-driven expansion deformation on plaque size was quantitatively revealed. Furthermore, it was confirmed by the numerical simulation results that the distribution of shear stress in the blood flow was altered by the plaque growth process through geometric deformation, thereby increasing the risk of thrombosis, and the critical plaque height for platelet activation was determined.

     

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