  This work deals with the viscoelasticity of the arterial wall and its
influence on the pulse waves. We describe the viscoelasticity by a non-linear
Kelvin-Voigt model in which the coefficients are fitted using experimental time
series of pressure and radius measured on a sheep's arterial network. We
obtained a good agreement between the results of the nonlinear Kelvin-Voigt
model and the experimental measurements. We found that the viscoelastic
relaxation time-defined by the ratio between the viscoelastic coefficient and
the Young's modulus-is nearly constant throughout the network. Therefore, as it
is well known that smaller arteries are stiffer, the viscoelastic coefficient
rises when approaching the peripheral sites to compensate the rise of the
Young's modulus, resulting in a higher damping effect. We incorporated the
fitted viscoelastic coefficients in a nonlinear 1D fluid model to compute the
pulse waves in the network. The damping effect of viscoelasticity on the high
frequency waves is clear especially at the peripheral sites.
