Buckling critical pressures in collapsible tubes relevant for biomedical flows

The behaviour of collapsed or stenotic vessels in the human body can be studied by means of simplified geometries like a collapsible tube. The objective of this work is to determine the value of the buckling critical pressure of a collapsible tube by employing Landau’s theory of phase transition. The methodology is based on the implementation of an experimentally validated 3D numerical model of a collapsible tube. The buckling critical pressure is estimated for different values of geometric parameters of the system by treating the relation between the intramural pressure and the area of the central cross-section as the order parameter function of the system. The results show the dependence of the buckling critical pressures on the geometric parameters of a collapsible tube. General non-dimensional equations for the buckling critical pressures are derived. The advantage of this method is that it does not require any geometric assumption, but it is solely based on the observation that the buckling of a collapsible tube can be treated as a second-order phase transition. The investigated geometric and elastic parameters are sensible for biomedical application, with particular interest to the study of the bronchial tree under pathophysiological conditions like asthma.