An Investigation on the Use of Silicone to Model Arterial Tissue Behaviour in the Idealised Tuning-Fork Model of the Carotid Bifurcation

The development of atherosclerosis in the carotid bifurcation of the cardiovascular system has been the subject of much investigation. The carotid bifurcation is a prevalent area for atherosclerotic plaque build-up (Sakata et al., 1988). The performance of minimally invasive treatment of this plaque build-up has been below expectations. There is an increased need to analyse the poor performance of this treatment by numerically and experimentally replicating the diseased carotid bifurcation geometry with realistic material behaviour. This paper presents the investigation of an analogue material to represent arterial tissue behaviour. The aim of this study is to computationally set up an idealised carotid bifurcation model and compare the mechanical behaviour of arterial tissue and a silicone material model.