Abstract
A porohyperelastic–transport–swelling (PHETS) model is presented in which a soft hydrated tissue material is viewed as a continuum composed of an incompressible porous solid ( fibrous matrix) that is saturated by an incompressible fluid (water) in which a mobile species (solute) is dissolved. This PHETS theoretical model is implemented using a finite element model (FEM) including inherent nonlinearity, coupled transport processes, and complicated geometry and boundary conditions associated with soft tissue structures. The PHETS material properties are clearly identified with a physical basis describing and quantifying elasticity, permeability, diffusion, convection, and osmotic properties. The equivalence between the PHETS and the triphasic (TRI) model (Lai et al., 1991) is established using the phenomenological equations, and mathematical expressions are given to relate the PHETS and TRI material properties. A principle of virtual velocities (PVV ) links Eulerian and Lagrangian PHETS formulations and provides correspondence rules between the Eulerian and the Lagrangian field variables and material properties. The PVV is also the basis for a mixed Lagrangian PHETS FEM (Kaufmann, 1996) , which was developed for the analysis of soft hydrated tissues. Selected PHETS FEM results are presented in order to demonstrate the capability of the PHETS model to simulate coupled deformation, stress, mobile water flux, and albumin flux in the arterial wall undergoing finite straining associated with pressurization, axial stretch, and changes in albumin concentration in bath solutions surrounding a segment of rabbit thoracic aorta. Values for isotropic material parameters and specific details of the experiments and data-reduction methods were obtained from Simon et al. (1997 ; 1998) .
Published Version
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