Principal Directions Research Articles

The Influence of Rib Distortion on the fatigue resistance of orthotropic plated bridge decks

AbstractOrthotropic bridge decks contain many places that are prone to fatigue damage due to the crossing of wheel loads of vehicles. Most research has focused on the rib to deck plate detail that has limited fatigue strength, especially due to the joint weld between these two parts. Less attention has been given to the effect of the alternating distortion stresses in the web plate of closed ribs. This distortion occurs as the rib passes through the web plate of the cross beams and is particularly pronounced if there is a high cope hole in that web plate. Experiments have been carried out in on this distortion effect at Ghent University. During 2 series of tests, similar results for the vertical rib web stress were found. However, these stresses due to distortion combine with longitudinal bending stress of the rib web and with shear. The corresponding strains were found from rosette measurements. These stress variations must be combined for fatigue assessment. This requires to use hot spot stress. In theory, the variation of the principal stress should be compared with the hot spot stress limit. This limit value is of course different for the 2 principal directions of the stress variations. This type of multi‐directional stress variations is addressed in codes, yet not exactly applicable in the present problem. Therefore, the modified critical plane offers a solution and gives more favourable results with longer fatigue endurance. In particular the Findley criterion that uses normal stress instead of shear, proves to be efficient in this type of problem. In order to link the results to simpler calculations, an attempt has been made to constitute a graph, which should allow a quick approximation for a first design.

Assessment of finite element human body and ATD models in estimating injury risk in far-side impacts using field-based injury risk

The objective of this study was to assess the ability of finite element human body models (FEHBMs) and Anthropometric Test Device (ATD) models to estimate occupant injury risk by comparing it with field-based injury risk in far-side impacts. The study used the Global Human Body Models Consortium midsize male (M50-OS+B) and small female (F05-OS+B) simplified occupant models with a modular detailed brain, and the ES-2Re and SID-IIs ATD models in the simulated far-side crashes. A design of experiments (DOE) with a total of 252 simulations was conducted by varying lateral ΔV (10-50kph; 5kph increments), the principal direction of force (PDOF 50°, 60°, 65°, 70°, 75°, 80°, 90°), and occupant models. Models were gravity-settled and belted into a simplified vehicle model (SVM) modified for far-side impact simulations. Acceleration pulses and vehicle intrusion profiles used for the DOE were generated by impacting a 2012 Camry vehicle model with a mobile deformable barrier model across the 7 PDOFs and 9 lateral ΔV’s in the DOE for a total of 63 additional simulations. Injury risks were estimated for the head, chest, lower extremity, pelvis (AIS 2+; AIS 3+), and abdomen (AIS 3+) using logistic regression models. Combined AIS 3+ injury risk for each occupant was calculated using AIS 3+ injury risk estimations for the head, chest, abdomen, and lower extremities. The injury risk calculated using computational models was compared with field-based injury risk derived from NASS-CDS by calculating their correlation coefficient. The field-based injury risk was calculated using risk curves that were created based on real-world crash data in a previous study (Hostetler et al., 2020). Occupant age (40 years), seatbelt use (belted occupant), collision deformation classification, lateral ΔV, and PDOF of the crash event were used in these curves to estimate field injury risk. Large differences in the kinematics were observed between HBM and ATD models. ATD models tended to overestimate risk in almost every case whereas HBMs yielded better risk estimates overall. Chest and lower extremity risks were the least correlated with field injury risk estimates. The overall risk of AIS 3+ injury risk was the strongest comparison to the field data-based risk curves. The HBMs were still not able to capture all the variance but future studies can be carried out that are focused on investigating their shortfalls and improving them to estimate injury risk closer to field injury risk in far-side crashes.

Anti-Hertz bulging of actuated liquid crystal elastomers

We consider the ‘anti-Hertz’ elastic problem of inverse indentation, which happens when the surface of an elastic material is pressed down with a plate with a round hole to form a bulge. This classical problem takes on a new life when a polydomain nematic liquid crystal elastomer is used. In this case, the nematic director aligns with the leading principal direction of local stress distribution created by bulging. When the deformed material is crosslinked a second time, this alignment pattern and the resulting permanent protrusion are preserved as pressure is removed, creating a bulge that can be reversibly actuated from a flat surface upon cooling. Experimentally, we also observe a dimple ring around the bulge and a punt (indentation) underneath it at the bottom. Theoretically, we model the deformation by coupling linear elastic and anelastic deformations using non-monotonic nematic elasticity and the singular stress-order relation of the polydomain-monodomain transition. The theory is in excellent agreement with the experiments, and predicts the emergence of all observed features.

Dynamic behaviors of frozen silt under repeated traffic loading

The temperature state of warm permafrost is in the negative temperature near-phase-transition interval and thus is extremely sensitive to small fluctuations of the heat and stress environment. The dynamic load induced by the vehicle operation not only changes its magnitude cyclically, but also its principal stress direction (PSD) consistently changes rotationally. However, the existing conventional dynamic research methods can only simulate the cyclic stress environment with constant PSD, which is very different from the stress environment induced by locomotive operation, and thus the conventional dynamic research results are bound to be difficult to accurately reflect the influence of the stress field induced by vehicle operation on the development law of warm permafrost permanent settlement deformation. Therefore, in this paper, a series of dynamic studies were carried out for the Qinghai-Tibet silt at −2 °C by simulating the cardioid-shaped stress path induced during the operation of a heavy-duty locomotive using a frozen hollow cylinder apparatus. It is found that the rotational effect of the principal stress direction under the conditions of the cardioid-shaped stress path (CSSP) action accelerates the development of vertical permanent deformation in the frozen soil. The main reason that caused the axial strain increases advantage is the rotation of principal stress direction can accelerate the viscous energy dissipation during dynamic loading process. According to the law of axial strain development in the high-temperature frozen soil under the conditions of different CSSP action, an empirical model of permanent deformation development in high-temperature frozen soil considering the PSD rotation effect was established, and it was found by this model calculation that under the general condition of heavy-load locomotive operation, compared with the conventional research method without considering the PSD rotation, the axial cumulated strain in high-temperature frozen soil increased by 33.3% after considering the rotation effect in the PSD.

System fragility evaluation of a curved highway bridge structure considering multi-direction seismic excitations

This paper presents the impact of varying the input seismic excitation directions on the system fragility of a geometrically complex highway bridge structure. The traditional approach of fragility derivation in the principal loading directions (longitudinal and transverse) results in an under/overestimation of the system fragility. To reduce such errors, the contribution of all major vulnerable components to the system fragility in the critical loading direction must be considered. For this purpose, a series of nonlinear time-history analyses were conducted for a testbed configured geometrically curved highway bridge structure in Japan. Shear strain, ductility, and distortion strain were considered as engineering demand parameters for bearings, concrete pier, and steel piers, respectively. The demand dependency among the components was considered using the correlation coefficient matrix for fragility estimation. Subsequently, fragility functions with respect to the input loading directions were generated for the bridge components and system to quantify their sensitivity to seismic input excitation directions. The results show that the component fragility is significantly influenced by the input excitation direction. A relative comparison of the system fragility for different loading directions indicated that a 150° loading direction yielded a higher fragility demand. The findings suggest that the critical fragility assessment should not always be decided only along the principal loading directions.

Optimized GICP registration algorithm based on principal component analysis for point cloud edge extraction

For iterative closest point (ICP) algorithm, the initial position and the number of iterations are needed in registration. At the same time, the ICP algorithm is easy to fall into local convergence and convergence speed is slow. By constructing K-D tree to search neighborhood points and artificially set threshold, plane fitting is carried out, the on-time point cloud to be deployed is separated from the complex background, and statistical analysis is used to calculate the distance between the point cloud and the neighborhood point to quickly remove the invalid point cloud. The surface equation is set to calculate the tangent plane of point cloud normal vector and each normal vector, and the local coordinate system is constructed. The angle between adjacent vectors and the local coordinate system is calculated to determine the feature point set of edge contour. According to the covariance matrix of the feature points set, the principal feature component is obtained, the principal axis direction of the two sets of point clouds is found, and the rotation matrix and the displacement vector are obtained. Finally, GICP precise registration of point cloud is carried out according to initial pose parameters and rigid body transformation matrix obtained by maximum likelihood estimation method. The results show that the optimized algorithm can effectively avoid local convergence. Compared with the traditional ICP algorithm, when the algorithm achieves the same registration accuracy in the public dataset experiment, the registration speed is on average 44.82% faster and the overlap rate is on average 15.26% higher. In the real dataset experiment, the registration speed is on average 59.04% faster, the registration accuracy is on average 30.24% higher and the overlap rate is on average 10.61% higher. This shows that the optimization algorithm is superior to the traditional ICP algorithm in registration accuracy and convergence speed.

Roadways fracture response under varying dominant blasting frequencies and lateral pressure coefficients

Dominant frequency of blasting waveform attenuates with increasing propagation distance, leading to diverse diffractive effects on a roadway located in different sublevels. To investigate the roadway fracture characteristics in response to varying blasting wave frequencies and geo-stresses. Numerical simulation and experiments were performed by using discrete element methods and acoustic emission (AE) techniques, respectively. Roadway response differences in terms of microcracks propagation regions were primarily investigated, to reveal the relationships between damage-prone regions and the lateral pressure coefficient and blast waveform frequencies. The results showed that the excavation damage zone (EDZ) and the types of microcracks developed are primarily influenced by the principal stress direction. Low-frequencies blast waves contribute significantly to the overall damage to the surrounding rock around the roadway, while high-frequencies blast waves mainly damage the sides of the facing blast. Under the coupling effect of principal stress and blast wave, microcracks are more prone to generate in regions coupling with high-stress concentration regions induced by principal stress and disturbed regions diffracted by blast waves. With the results from this study, the roadway support should consider the difference in damage-prone regions triggered by blasting waves with varying dominant frequencies under different lateral pressure coefficients.

Inpainting in Discrete Sobolev Spaces: Structural Information for Uncertainty Reduction

In this article, we introduce a new mathematical functional whose minimization determines the quality of the solution for the exemplar-based inpainting-by-patch problem. The new functional expression includes finite difference terms in a similar fashion to what happens in the theoretical Sobolev spaces: its use reduces the uncertainty in the choice of the most suitable values for each point to inpaint. Moreover, we introduce a probabilistic model by which we prove that the usual principal directions, generally employed for continuous problems, are not enough to achieve consistent reconstructions in the discrete inpainting asset. Finally, we formalize a new priority index and new rules for its dynamic update. The quality of the reconstructions, achieved using a reduced neighborhood size of more than 95% with respect to the current state-of-the-art algorithms based on the same inpainting approach, further provides the experimental validation of the method.

Scattered direction of guided waves in composites with steering effects

We studied the scattered direction of the guided wave in composites and found a negative reflection phenomenon, whereby the reflection and incident directions lie on the same side of the interface’s normal direction. Scattering sources, such as delamination and stiffeners, can generate the scattered wave, and the scattered direction is dependent on the incident angle and interface direction due to the velocity anisotropy and steering effect. When the interface direction is not aligned with the principal material directions, the slowness curve becomes asymmetric about the interface. At a certain incident angle, the reflection angle is negative and negative reflection occurs, which is related to the tangent line of the slowness curve parallel to the interface direction. We experimentally proved the existence of negative reflection, which provides a basis for improving damage imaging and phased array applications. We also quantitatively verified the relationship between the damage direction and the reflection angle, which is significant for imaging compensation.

Characterization of Pegmatites in Ogodo-Odobola Area of Idah Sheet 267NW, Central Nigeria

The pegmatites of Ogodo-Odobola area around Ajaokuta, Central Nigeria belong to the pegmatite belt of Central Nigeria. A detailed geological mapping of the pegmatites and host rocks was conducted with the aim of understanding their mode of occurrence and field relationship and to assess their mineralization potentials. Twelve (12) representative samples of rocks were selected for petrographic analysis. The results show that the area is underlain by migmatite-gneiss, schist, with intrusions of granite and pegmatite. The pegmatites occur in tabular form with varying widths (2 centimetres – 6 metres) and lengths (12 – 200 metres). Principal joint direction is NNE-SSW which is believed to have influenced the pegmatite emplacement. Petrography of the representative rock samples revealed an average mineralogical composition of biotite (23.90%), microcline (22.15%), hornblende (15.05%), quartz (10.65%), plagioclase (10.35%), muscovite (8.00%), myrmekite (0.20%), and opaque and accessory minerals (9.70%). The pegmatites were found to be dominated by microcline and plagioclase feldspars, and then muscovite, biotite, and accessory and opaque minerals. The pegmatite of the Ogodo-Odobola area is worth probing as the results have shown prospect for possible economic minerals.

Macro-micro Performances of Granular Materials Considering the Influences of Density and Stress Path under True Triaxial Conditions: A DEM Investigation

The mechanical behaviors of granular materials are dominated by internal structure, which are related to fabric evolution during loading. This study investigated the fabric evolution of granular materials with different densities and stress paths under true triaxial conditions. A series of discrete element numerical simulations with different intermediate principal stress coefficient b were carried out along the constant mean stress p and the constant minor principal stress σ3 stress paths for both loose and dense specimens. The results indicated that the constant-p stress path produced a faster increase in stress ratio than the constant-σ3 stress path at the same b. The effects of specimen density on the peak friction angle are greater than that of stress path. The microscopic analyses revealed that the constant-p stress path facilitates a much more preferential distribution of normal contact force network along the major principal direction. The discrepancies in the peak stress ratio under two stress paths were thus interpreted. The dense specimen will rapidly form a higher anisotropic distribution of the normal contact force network upon shearing, and its anisotropic intensity was almost twice that of the loose specimen at the peak stress state. In addition, a unique relationship between the strong deviatoric fabric ratio and stress ratio was presented. The ratio of the two was approximately 1.0 regardless of stress path, density and b value. Finally, an underlying relationship between the stress components and the whole fabric components at the critical state was confirmed by introducing a new stress tensor. The three principal components (F1, F2 and F3) of the whole fabric tensor can be quantitatively represented with the imposed three principal stress components (σ1, σ2 and σ3) by employing a relationship of F1:F2:F3 = σ10.27:σ20.27:σ30.27. It provides a more comprehensive perspective to analyze the macro-micro performances of granular materials at the critical state.

Crossed helical gears—simulative studies and experimental results on non-involute geometries

Crossed helical gear units generally consist of a steel worm and a plastic helical gear with an axis crossing angle. Due to the high transmission ratio in a small installation space, they are used in auxiliary and actuating gears such as in window regulators, assembly lines, household appliances and positioning tasks. This paper deals with a calculation approach for crossed helical gears to include non-involute flank geometries for new and optimized gearboxes. The geometry derivation for general flank contours based on a polynomial and extends the geometric possibilities beyond the special case of the involute form. The use of principal curvatures and principal curvature directions to describe freely curved surface geometries enables the calculation of flank pressures, efficiency and sliding paths in the entire contact area. Previous studies confirmed the advantages in the mentioned load characteristics for geometries deviating from the involute. Furthermore, parameter studies show the influences of the individual design parameters and demonstrate the effects on operating behavior, with those a design recommendation for crossed helical gear units with general flank geometries can be created. ZC and ZC‑S geometries are used as calculation examples. With regard to the use of these new geometries in applications, manufacturing is a crucial aspect. Grinding disc parameters as well as a three-roll size to control the worm manufacturing for general flank geometries are necessary and described below. In addition to the theoretical calculation, a ZC crossed helical gear geometry was designed, manufactured and compared to a ZI reference gear in test rigs. This confirmed the advantages in load-carrying capacity and efficiency increase resulting from the calculation and proved the benefits.

Local geometry of a weak normal shock wave interacting with turbulence

The shock surface geometry is investigated with direct numerical simulations of a weak normal shock wave propagating in turbulence. The geometry is quantified with the principal curvatures of the surface. A large part of the surface has an approximately flat saddle shape, while elliptic concave and convex shapes with a large curvature intermittently appear on the shock surface. The pressure–dilatation correlation in the governing equation of pressure is investigated at the shock wave with the decomposition into three terms associated with the velocity gradients in the two directions of the principal curvatures and the normal direction of the shock wave. Fluid expansion in the tangential direction occurs at the shock wave with a convex shape in the direction of the shock propagation, resulting in a smaller pressure jump across the shock wave. For a concave shape, compression in the tangential direction can amplify the pressure jump. Consistently, small and large shock Mach numbers are observed for convex and concave shapes, respectively. The geometric influences are the most significant for elliptic concave and convex shapes with approximately equal curvatures in the two principal directions because the compression or expansion occurs in all tangential directions. These relations between the shock surface geometry and shock Mach number observed in turbulence are consistent with the theory of deformed shock waves, suggesting that the three-dimensional geometrical features of the shock surface are important in the modulation of shock waves due to turbulence.

Scaling Microseismic Cloud Shape During Hydraulic Stimulation Using In Situ Stress and Permeability

AbstractForecasting microseismic cloud shape as a proxy of stimulated rock volume may improve the design of an energy extraction system. The microseismic cloud created during hydraulic stimulation of geothermal reservoirs is known empirically to extend in the general direction of the maximum principal stress. However, this empirical relationship is often inconsistent with reported results, and the cloud growth process remains poorly understood. This study investigates microseismic cloud growth using data obtained from a hydraulic stimulation project in Basel, Switzerland, and explores its correlation with measured in situ stress. We applied principal component analysis to a time series of microseismicity for macroscopic characterization of microseismic cloud growth in two‐ and three‐dimensional space. The microseismic cloud, in addition to extending in the general direction of maximum principal stress, expanded in the direction of intermediate principal stress. The orientation of the least microseismic cloud growth was stable and almost identical to the minimum principal stress direction. Further, microseismic cloud shape ratios showed good agreement when compared with in situ stress magnitude ratios. The permeability tensor estimated from microseismicity also provided a good correlation in terms of direction and magnitude with the microseismic cloud growth. We show that in situ stress plays a dominant role by controlling the permeability of each existing fracture in the reservoir fracture system. Consequently, microseismic cloud growth can be scaled by in situ stress as a first‐order approximation if there is sufficient variation in the orientation of existing faults.

A fourth-order degradation tensor for an anisotropic damage phase-field model

This work proposes a thermodynamically consistent phase-field model for anisotropic brittle material under the hypotheses of plane stress, small deformation and constant temperature. The model is derived from the principle of virtual power, the first and second laws of thermodynamics in the form of the Clausius-Duhem inequality. The degradation effect on the material behavior is given by a fourth-order degradation tensor introduced as an internal variable that evolves according to the current strain state rather than the conventional scalar degradation function of phase-field models. Therefore, local anisotropy can be induced, changing the material mechanical behavior differently in all directions organically. The proposed degradation tensor is defined in the global coordinate system and therefore is sensitive to any change in the principal directions of the strain and stress states. To demonstrate the model’s capability of representing damage in isotropic and transversely isotropic materials, some benchmark examples were carried out and the evolution of the damage components was analyzed.

DEM study on the non-coaxial deformation characteristics of granular soils under various traffic loading conditions

Although the macro-scale stress–strain relations of sands under traffic loading can be investigated using hollow cylinder apparatus, the microscopic mechanism of the deformation accumulation and the non-coaxial behavior of sands under principal stress rotation induced by the traffic loading has not been fully understood. In this paper, both isotropic and transversely isotropic specimens comprised of elongated particles were generated using the discrete element method. The non-coaxial deformation characteristics of granular soils under various types of cardioid-shaped loading paths are illustrated in detail. The simulation results show that a greater cyclic vertical stress ratio and cyclic torsional stress ratio can lead to a smaller non-coaxial angle between the principal directions of stress and strain increment. The evolution of the internal structure is quantified by the contact-normal-based fabric tensor, which describes the load-bearing structure of granular specimens. The transversely isotropic specimen exhibits more significant non-coaxiality between the loading direction and the principal direction of the fabric and therefore greater volumetric contraction than that of the isotropic specimens. Moreover, the transversely isotropic specimen shows smaller normal strain accumulation than that of the isotropic specimen, which can be well explained by the interplay between the modulus of the specimen and the fabric evolutions.

Computational homogenization of histological microstructures in human prostate tissue: Heterogeneity, anisotropy and tension-compression asymmetry.

Human prostatic tissue exhibits complex mechanical behaviour due to its multiphasic, heterogeneous nature, with hierarchical microstructures involving epithelial compartments, acinar lumens and stromal tissue all interconnected in complex networks. This study aims to establish a computational homogenization framework for quantifying the mechanical behaviour of prostate tissue, considering its multiphasic heterogeneous microstructures and the mechanical characteristics of tissue constituents. Representative tissue microstructure models were reconstructed from high-resolution histology images. Parametric studies on the mechanical properties of the tissue constituents, particularly the fibre-reinforced hyper-elasticity of the stromal tissue, were carried out to investigate their effects on the apparent tissue properties. These were then benchmarked against the experimental data reported in literature. Results showed significant anisotropy, both structural and mechanical, and tension-compression asymmetry of the apparent behaviours of the prostatic tissue. Strong correlation with the key microstructural indices such as area fractions of tissue constituents and the tissue fabric tensor was also observed. The correlation between the stromal tissue orientation and the principal directions of the apparent properties suggested an essential role of stromal tissue in determining the directions of anisotropy and the compression-tension asymmetry characteristics in normal human prostatic tissue. This work presented a homogenization and histology-based computational approach to characterize the apparent mechanical behaviours of human prostatic or other similar glandular tissues, with the ultimate aim of assessing how pathological conditions (e.g., prostate cancer and benign prostatic hyperplasia) could affect the tissue mechanical properties in a future study.

Estimation of multistage hydraulic fracturing parameters using 4D simulation

At the present stage, most oil and gas condensate fields in the southern part of the East Siberian oil and gas province are characterized by an increasing proportion of difficult oil reserves in tight reservoirs. Multistage hydraulic fracturing (MHF) is proposed for the offshore Challenger Sea field (Southeast Dome). The implementation of this technique at a shelf will be a source of additional risks. For example, the properties of the RR-2 overlying seal have not been unambiguously assessed, and there are a number of geological uncertainties, such as the tectonic regime. However, there are a number of arguments in favor of MHF: heterogeneity of the reservoir; low permeability; low water cut of the field; sufficient thickness of the pay zone; and the overlying seal. One more positive factor is that sand ingress is not observed in the process of oil production. The selection of a principal well completion scheme on the eastern side of the RR-7 formation is aimed at effectively recovering the remaining reserves. The objectives of the study performed are: to create a geological and hydrodynamic model of the Challenger Sea (Southeast Dome); develop 1D and 3D geomechanical models; evaluate oil production forecasts based on fundamentally different well completion schemes; and determine the optimum parameters for multistage hydraulic fracturing. The research methods included: petrophysical methods; logging methods; core studies; drilling reports and formation testing data; and 3D, 4D geomechanical simulation. Other geophysical methods included acoustic logging, density logging, and gamma-ray logging. After building a geomechanical model of the reservoir at the beginning of drilling, a hydrodynamic calculation was performed. This established the reservoir pressures and saturations at certain points in time. The results made it possible for the principal stress directions, the values of effective and principal stresses, and the values of elastic strains to be determined. In order to assess MGF process efficiency, production forecasts were made using a hydrodynamic model for an exploration well with conventional completion (perforated liner) and with five-stage MGF. In the first case, the accumulated production was 144 kt over 15 years, and in the second case, 125 kt over 17 years. The difference in cumulative production is due to different initial well flow rates, as well as the rate of oil withdrawal during the first few years of development. Thereafter, the production and daily flow rate curves showed similar behavior. In order to select the most effective option, an economic analysis of the efficiency was performed.

Acoustic properties of piezoelectric cubic crystals

AbstractThis paper is offered as a complementary adjunct to the many treatments of the electronic and photonic properties of cubic III–V and II–VI compounds appearing in the literature. These crystals typically exhibit piezoelectricity, due to the molecular dissymmetry, thereby allowing the inclusion of classical mechanical/acoustic features along with the quantum. We discuss the history of this modality and then illustrate its use by applying it to an electro‐elastic problem that has the estimable virtues of having an exact solution, along with wide practical applicability: determination of the piezocoupling values governing the excitation of thickness vibrations in thin cubic films or plates of arbitrary crystallographic orientation by electric fields directed either along, or lateral to, the thickness. Explicit results are given for orientations along the great‐circle paths connecting the principal directions [100], [110], and [111]. The formalism is then applied to GaAs as an example; it is further demonstrated that various results, such as the orientational variations of piezocoupling factors, are generally applicable to other members of the III–V and II–VI families by scaling. Ancillary aspects, such as errors due to misorientations, nonlinearities, and equivalent circuit representations, are described and discussed. This work is dedicated to Gerald W. Farnell (1925–2015), Prof. Emeritus, McGill University, Montréal, Canada.

Microscale investigation of the anisotropic swelling of cartilage tissue and cells in response to hypo-osmotic challenges.

Tissue swelling represents an early sign of osteoarthritis, reflecting osmolarity changes from iso- to hypo-osmotic in the diseased joints. Increased tissue hydration may drive cell swelling. The opposing cartilages in a joint may swell differently, thereby predisposing the more swollen cartilage and cells to mechanical injuries. However, our understanding of the tissue-cell interdependence in osmotically loaded joints is limited as tissue and cell swellings have been studied separately. Here, we measured tissue and cell responses of opposing patellar (PAT) and femoral groove (FG) cartilages in lapine knees exposed to an extreme hypo-osmotic challenge. We found that the tissue matrix and most cells swelled during the hypo-osmotic challenge, but to a different extent (tissue: <3%, cells: 11%-15%). Swelling-induced tissue strains were anisotropic, showing 2%-4% stretch and 1%-2% compression along the first and third principal directions, respectively. These strains were amplified by 5-8 times in the cells. Interestingly, the first principal strains of tissue and cells occurred in different directions (60-61° for tissue vs. 8-13° for cells), suggesting different mechanisms causing volume expansion in the tissue and the cells. Instead of the continuous swelling observed in the tissue matrix, >88% of cells underwent regulatory volume decrease to return to their pre-osmotic challenge volumes. Cell shapes changed in the early phase of swelling but stayed constant thereafter. Kinematic changes to tissue and cells were larger for PAT cartilage than for FG cartilage. We conclude that the swelling-induced deformation of tissue and cells isanisotropic. Cells actively restored volume independent of the surrounding tissues and seemed to prioritize volume restoration over shape restoration. Our findings shed light on tissue-cell interdependence in changing osmotic environments that is crucial for cell mechano-transduction in swollen/diseased tissues.