| Heart ventricular mechanics has been investigated intensively in the last four decades. The passive material properties, the ventricular geometry and muscular architecture, and the myocardial activation are among the most important determinants of cardiac mechanics. The heart muscle is anisotropic, inhomogeneous, and highly nonlinear. The heart ventricular geometry is irregular and object dependent. The muscular architecture includes the organization of the fiber and the connective tissues. Studies of the myocardial activation have been carried out at both cell and tissue levels.; Previous work from our research group has successfully estimated the in-vivo motion and deformation of both the left and the right ventricles. In this dissertation, we first present a model to optimize the fiber and sheet orientation. Then, we present a stochastic model to estimate the in-vivo myocardium material properties, the active forces generated along fiber orientation, and stress distribution in both ventricles. Using the model, we have simulated the mechanical events of a few different heart diseases. Noticeable strain and stress differences are found between normal and diseased hearts. |
