A waviness-centered damage model for collagenous soft tissues

Abstract

This article presents a damage model for collagenous tissue under monotonic loading. Given that the true stretch of collagen fibers is not uniform and is regulated by fiber waviness, we postulate that damage commences from more stretched (i.e. straighter) fibers and progresses to less stretched (i.e. wavier) ones. The complicated nonlinear response is regarded as the outcome of two competing mechanisms: the recruitment of wavy intact fibers and the loss of taut functioning fibers. The progression of damage is modeled by an evolving damage front in the waviness domain. A power law is proposed for the evolution of damage front. The model was fitted to four groups of published uniaxial and biaxial tests data of vascular tissues. Spot-on fits were observed in all groups.