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A Structural, Kinetic Model of Soft Tissue Thermomechanics

Triantafyllos Stylianopoulos ^*, Alptekin Aksan  and Victor H. Barocas 

^* Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Department of Mechanical Engineering, and Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Correspondence: Address reprint requests to Victor H. Barocas, 7-105 Hasselmo Hall, 312 Church St. SE, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455. Tel.: 612-626-5572; Fax: 612-626-6583; E-mail: baroc001{at}umn.edu.

A structure-based kinetic model was developed to predict the thermomechanical response of collagenous soft tissues. The collagen fibril was represented as an ensemble of molecular arrays with cross-links connecting the collagen molecules within the same array. A two-state kinetic model for protein folding was employed to represent the native and the denatured states of the collagen molecule. The Monte Carlo method was used to determine the state of the collagen molecule when subjected to thermal and mechanical loads. The model predictions were compared to existing experimental data for New Zealand white rabbit patellar tendons. The model predictions for one-dimensional tissue shrinkage and the corresponding mechanical property degradation agreed well with the experimental data, showing that the gross tissue behavior is dictated by molecular-level phenomena.