Numerical simulation of mechanical tests on a living skin using anisotropic hyperelastic law

Abstract

The skin is a living tissue that behaves in a hyperelastic and anisotropic way. A constitutive law called HGO-Yeoh is proposed to model the skin by improving the classical HGO constitutive law. This model is implemented in a finite element code FER “Finite Element Research” to benefit from its tools, including the bipotential contact method, a very efficient function coupling contact and friction. Identifying the skin-related material parameters is done through an optimisation procedure using analytic and experimental data. A tensile test is simulated using the codes FER and ANSYS. Then, the results are compared with the experimental data. Finally, a simulation of an indentation test using a bipotential contact law is done.