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Numerical modelling of the fibre–matrix interaction in biaxial loading for hyperelastic soft tissue models
Author(s) -
Lu Y. T.,
Zhu H. X.,
Richmond S.,
Middleton J.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
international journal for numerical methods in biomedical engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.741
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 2040-7947
pISSN - 2040-7939
DOI - 10.1002/cnm.1455
Subject(s) - hyperelastic material , materials science , matrix (chemical analysis) , composite material , deformation (meteorology) , stress (linguistics) , composite number , stress field , field (mathematics) , mechanics , structural engineering , finite element method , mathematics , physics , engineering , linguistics , philosophy , pure mathematics
SUMMARY This paper assumes that a neo‐Hookean matrix with neo‐Hookean fibres is representative of soft tissue. Under this assumption, a unit cell model is proposed to investigate the fibre–matrix interfacial stress field for biological soft tissue under biaxial loadings. In this unit cell model, the soft tissue is treated as a composite where the matrix is unidirectionally reinforced with a single family of aligned fibres. The results are compared with the model of Guo et al ., which accounts for the fibre–matrix interfacial stress field, and Qiu and Pence's model, which does not proceed from the assumption that the fibres are themselves neo‐Hookean. It is found that the stress representative of the fibre–matrix interface plays an important role in the deformation of the composite, and the model of Guo et al . underestimates this stress under large biaxial deformation. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.