The non-linear mechanical properties of soft engineered biological tissues determined by finite spherical indentation

• Published in: Computer methods in biomechanics and biomedical engineering Vol. 11; no. 5; pp. 585 - 592
• Main Authors: Cox, Martijn A.J., Gawlitta, Debby, Driessen, Niels J.B., Oomens, Cees W.J., Baaijens, Frank P.T.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Taylor & Francis Group 01-10-2008
• Subjects: Animals; Biomechanical Phenomena; Cells, Cultured; Computer Simulation; deep tissue injury; Elasticity; Finite Element Analysis; in vitro; inverse characterization; Mice; muscle model; Muscles - physiology; Myoblasts - physiology; Nonlinear Dynamics; Shear Strength - physiology; Stress, Mechanical; Tissue Engineering - methods
• ISSN: 1025-5842; 1476-8259
• DOI: 10.1080/10255840701771768

The mechanical properties of soft biological tissues in general and early stage engineered tissues in particular limit the feasibility of conventional tensile tests for their mechanical characterisation. Furthermore, the most important mode in development of deep tissue injury (DTI) is compression. Therefore, an inverse numerical-experimental approach using a finite spherical indentation test is proposed. To demonstrate the feasibility of the approach indentation tests are applied to bio-artificial muscle (BAM) tissue. BAMs are cultured in vitro with (n = 20) or without (n = 12) myoblast cells to quantify the effect of the cells on the passive transverse mechanical properties. Indentation tests are applied up to 80% of the tissue thickness. A non-linear Neo-Hookean constitutive model is fitted to the experimental results for parameter estimation. BAMs with cells demonstrated both stiffer and more non-linear material behaviour than BAMs without cells.