Similarities between soft biological tissues and rubberlike materials

摘要

Several scientists have drawn attention to similarities between soft biological tissues and rubberlike materials. This dates back to Roy (1880) in the context of arterial wall mechanics and Karrer (1933) in respect of muscle mechanics. Both soft tissues and rubberlike materials consist of three-dimensional networks of macromolecules held together by covalent and van der Waals bonds. An underlying concept makes use of the idea of expressing the number of conformations that a chain molecule can assume as an 'entropic effect' (leading to entropic elasticity). As a result, the associated thermomechanical behavior of the macromolecules is significantly different from that of, e.g., metals for which an ordered collection of atoms is held together in a lattice structure by interatomic bonds (leading to energetic elasticity). This proceedings paper aims to highlight similarities in the structure, mechanical characteristics and constitutive modeling of soft biological tissues and rubberlike materials for which many advances in the past have gone hand in hand.