Hypoelastic soft tissues

Abstract

In Part I, a novel hypoelastic framework for soft-tissues was presented. One of the hallmarks of this new theory is that the well-known exponential behavior of soft-tissues arises consistently and spontaneously from the integration of a rate based formulation. In Part II, we examine the application of this framework to the problem of biaxial kinematics, which are common in experimental soft-tissue characterization. We confine our attention to an isotropic formulation in order to highlight the distinction between non-linearity and anisotropy. In order to provide a sound foundation for the membrane extension of our earlier hypoelastic framework, the kinematics and kinetics of in-plane biaxial extension are revisited, and some enhancements are provided. Specifically, the conventional stress-to-traction mapping for this boundary value problem is shown to violate the conservation of angular momentum. In response, we provide a corrected mapping. In addition, a novel means for applying loads to in-plane biaxial experiments is proposed. An isotropic, isochoric, hypoelastic, constitutive model is applied to an in-plane biaxial experiment done on glutaraldehyde treated bovine pericardium. The experiment is comprised of eight protocols that radially probe the biaxial plane. Considering its simplicity (two adjustable parameters) the model does a reasonably good job of describing the non-linear normal responses observed in these experimental data, which are more prevalent than are the anisotropic responses exhibited by this tissue.