Tendons and ligaments are complex multi-scale collageneous structures playing a fundamental role in mouvement. Even if these tissues are extensively studied in the past decades, modeling their non-linear viscoelastic properties is still a tough challenge. In order to reveal the relationship between the multi-scale structures and the macroscopic mechanical properties, we used atomic force microscopy (AFM) and second harmonic generation (SHG) microscopy to study unstreateched microtome slices of rabbit Achilles tendons, and an Adamel Lomargy DY.22 tensile test machine to study the dynamic properties of these tissues. Based on our data, a Zener model was used to describe the dynamic loading and unloading cycles.
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