Study of biaxial mechanical properties of the passive pig heart: material characterisation and categorisation of regional differences

Regional mechanics of the heart is vital in the development of accurate computational models for the pursuit of relevant therapies. Challenges related to heart dysfunctioning are the most important sources of mortality in the world. For example, myocardial infarction (MI) is the foremost killer in sub-Saharan African countries. Mechanical characterisation plays an important role in achieving accurate material behaviour. Material behaviour and constitutive modelling are essential for accurate development of computational models. The biaxial test data was utilised to generated Fung constitutive model material parameters of specific region of the pig myocardium. Also, Choi-Vito constitutive model material parameters were also determined in various myocardia regions. In most cases previously, the mechanical properties of the heart myocardium were assumed to be homogeneous. Most of the computational models developed have assumed that the all three heart regions exhibit similar mechanical properties. Hence, the main objective of this paper is to determine the mechanical material properties of healthy porcine myocardium in three regions, namely left ventricle (LV), mid-wall/interventricular septum (MDW) and right ventricle (RV). The biomechanical properties of the pig heart RV, LV and MDW were characterised using biaxial testing. The biaxial tests show the pig heart myocardium behaves non-linearly, heterogeneously and anisotropically. In this study, it was shown that RV, LV and MDW may exhibit slightly different mechanical properties. Material parameters of two selected constitutive models here may be helpful in regional tissue mechanics, especially for the understanding of various heart diseases and development of new therapies.