Related papers: Torque-induced reorientation in active fibre-reinf…
Remodelling of biological tissue, due to changes in microstructure, is treated in the continuum mechanical setting. Microstructural change is expressed as an evolution of the reference configuration. This evolution is expressed as a…
This paper introduces a model for the mechanical response of anisotropic soft materials undergoing large inelastic deformations. The composite is constituted by a soft isotropic matrix reinforced with stiff fibres, that can evolve…
A new class of micromechanically motivated chain network models for soft biological tissues is presented. On the microlevel, it is based on the statistics of long chain molecules. A wormlike chain model is applied to capture the behavior of…
In this paper we present a large-deformation formulation of the mechanics of remodeling. Remodeling is anelasticity with an internal constraint -- material evolutions that are mass and volume preserving. In this special class of material…
Fibre-reinforced elastomers are lightweight and strong materials that can sustain large deformations. When filled with magnetic particles, their effective mechanical response can be modified by an external magnetic field. In the present…
In articular cartilage the orientation of collagen fibres is not uniform, varying mostly with the depth on the tissue. Besides, the biomechanical response of each layer of the articular cartilage differs from the neighbouring ones, evolving…
In this paper three different approaches towards a continuum theory of fiber suspensions are discussed. The first one is the classical Thermodynamics of Irreversible Processes with internal variables. It derives constitutive equations for…
Taylor's swimming sheet is a classical model of microscale propulsion and pumping. Many biological fluids and substances are fibrous, having a preferred direction in their microstructure; for example cervical mucus is formed of polymer…
Fluid elements deform in turbulence by stretching and folding. In this work, by projecting the material deformation tensor onto the largest stretching direction, the dynamics of folding is depicted through the evolution of the material…
A constitutive model is derived for the time-dependent response of particle-reinforced elastomers at finite strains. An amorphous rubbery polymer is treated as a network of long chains linked by permanent junctions (chemical crosslinks,…
This study addresses the modelling of elastic bodies, particularly when the relaxed configuration is unknown or non-existent. We adopt the theory of initially stressed materials, incorporating the deformation gradient and stress state of…
Filamentous bio-materials such as fibrin or collagen networks exhibit an enormous stiffening of their elastic moduli upon large deformations. This pronounced nonlinear behavior stems from a significant separation between the stiffnesses…
A constitutive relation between stress and strain relative to a reference state is the basic assumption of elasticity theory. However, in living matter, force generation is governed by motor molecule activity, which does not depend on…
Configurational, or Eshelby-like, forces are shown to strongly influence the nonlinear dynamics of an elastic rod constrained with a frictionless sliding sleeve at one end and with an attached mass at the other end. The configurational…
Several experiments have demonstrated the existence of an electro-mechanical effect in many biological tissues and hydrogels, and its actual influence on growth, migration, and pattern formation. Here, to model these interactions and…
Fibre-reinforced hydrogels are promising materials for biomedical applications due to their strength, toughness, and tunability. However, it remains unclear how to design fibre-reinforced hydrogels for use in specific applications due to…
Helical ribbons arise in many biological and engineered systems, often driven by anisotropic surface stress, residual strain, and geometric or elastic mismatch between layers of a laminated composite. A full mathematical analysis is…
A theoretical analysis of the effect of force and torque on spontaneously twisted, fluctuating elastic ribbons is presented. We find that when a filament with a straight center line and a spontaneously twisted noncircular cross section is…
The present work investigates the mechanical behaviour of finite-size, elastic and inertial fibres freely moving in a homogeneous and isotropic turbulent flow at moderate Reynolds number. Fully-resolved, direct numerical simulations, based…
Understanding cellular response to mechanical forces is immensely important for a plethora of biological processes. Focal adhesions are multi-molecular protein assemblies that connect the cell to the extracellular matrix and play a pivotal…