Elasticity in Arteries

By Robert Edward Shadwick

A similar combination of rubbery and stiff materials creates common mechanical properties in blood vessels of vertebrates and some invertebrates

Biology Engineering

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November-December 1998

Volume 86, Number 6
Page 535

DOI: 10.1511/1998.43.535

Many animals, from people to lobsters, rely on circulatory systems of fundamentally similar design. These systems consist of a pumping organ and a set of conduits that circulate the blood. In all cases, the pump is powered by cyclical contractions of linear motors, or muscle. Consequently, the flow of blood into the arterial tree is very pulsatile. During each cardiac cycle, the blood's pressure and flow velocity rise and fall with these regular contractions.

Tom Dunne and Linda Huff; Photograph courtesy of Robert E. Shadwick.

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