Répartition des contraintes au sein d'une plaque d'athérome coronarienne chez l'homme obtenue à partir d'un modèle 3D aux éléments finis

To quantify the stress distribution in an artherosclerotic plaque, it is usual to perform a finite element analysis (FEA) of the cross section having the highest stenosis severity. The purpose of this study is to compare the stress distributions obtained from the real 3D-plaque geometry with those obtained from the 2D FEA. Our calculations shown that for a complex and heterogeneous plaque, the 2D FEA of several cross sections is needed in order to be in agreement with the 3D FEA results, and to localize the region in which plaque rupture may occur.