Vascular wall shear stress: basic principles and methods.

Abstract

he investigation of various me-chanical forces and the tissue de-formations they induce have beenextensively studied for over three centu-ries. The basic principles concerning therelationship between mechanical stressand strain of various materials were demon-strated by Robert Hooke (1635-1703) andproved to be essential for the improvementof bio-materials and the understanding ofpathophysiological mechanisms in the vas-cular bed. Subsequently, the ground-break-ing studies of Jean Poiseuille (1799-1869)led to the development of mercury mano-meters for blood pressure measurementand resulted in theories describing the flowinside a cylindrical conduit, widely knownas Poiseuille’s law. The present work aims to describeand provide an interpretation of basic me-chanical and haemodynamic phenomenarelated to forces applied to arterial wallsand especially shear stresses.