The Effect of Arterial Wall Deformability on Hemodynamics of CABG

In this study, hemodynamic forces in a three-dimensional (3D) computational model of Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting (CABG) with deformable and rigid walls were compared. A physiologic pulsatile non-Newtonian blood flow was considered in the arteries for both models. The artery walls in the distensible model were considered to be hyper-elastic with nonlinear strain dependent Young’s module and axial and radial degrees of freedom, while the deformability in all directions of the rigid model was restricted. The velocity distributions and magnitudes, vortex motions and the occurrence of recirculation zones were selected as the primary hemodynamic parameters in order to show the effect of deformability in the arterial wall and in calculating differences versus the rigid wall model. It was found that during systolic, the velocity magnitude at the host artery bed could vary by up to 80% depending on the longitudinal distance from the center of the anastomosis junction.