BME 315 Biomechanics Material Properties of Tendon: introduction

Adapted by R. Lakes from D. Thelen and C. Decker, U. Wisconsin, 09

I. Introduction In this lab, we will investigate the material properties of a tendon. Tendons and ligaments are very similar in structure and composition. They are both composed of collagen and elastin fibers, with a structural hierarchy (Fig. 1). Structurally, tendons connect muscle to bone, and ligaments connect bone to bone. An example of a tendon would be the many tendons of the lower leg muscles (Fig. 2a) which act to move the foot. An example of a ligament would be one of the many ligaments that hold together the bones of your shoulder (Fig. 2b), such as the acromioclavicular ligament and the corocoacromial ligament (named after the locations on the bones that they connect). The material composition and properties of tendons and ligaments reflect the differences in loading that they will commonly experience. As tendons will transmit significant forces from the muscle into movement of the bone very regularly, they are a slightly stronger tissue than ligaments, and are composed of more collagen fibers (roughly 85% versus 70% [1]).

Figure 1: Hierarchical structure of tendon and ligament [2].

Tendons and ligaments experience primarily tensile loading in vivo. Hence in this lab, we will be performing a tensile loading test in which we make continuous measurements of the load and deflection until failure of the specimen. The measured loads and deflections will be normalized by initial cross-sectional area and length, respectively. These normalized quantities are referred to as normal stress and strain. Typical engineering materials (e.g. steel and aluminum) usually exhibit linear, elastic, homogeneous, and isotropic properties, which is reflected in a linear stress-strain curve for loads below the elastic limit (Fig. 3). In contrast, biological materials often exhibit non-linear, inelastic, non-homogenous and anisotropic behavior (Fig. 4).

BME 315 Biomechanics Material Properties of Tendon

Figure 2: Lower leg muscles and tendon attachments [3] (a) and ligaments of the shoulder [4] (b).

The non-linear behavior of tendon can be understood by inspection of the material substructure and hierarchy shown in Figure 1, and the inset images in Figure 4. In the tendon, the fibrils are composed of many crimped collagen fibers, and many fibrils are adhered to each other. When the tissue is stretched, the fibers uncrimp and straighten (Fig. 4), which contributes to the toeregion of the curve. As load is increased, continuously increasing amounts of fibers are recruited. Finally, in the linear portion of the stress strain curve, all fibers have been recruited and are straight. A linearly increasing stress versus strain response is then exhibited. At larger strains, the tendon will begin to undergo micro-damage, leading to the eventual macro-damage and failure.

Figure 3: Typical stress strain curve of a metal.

BME 315 Biomechanics Material Properties of Tendon

Figure 4: Typical stress strain curve of tendon or ligament connective tissue.

Biological materials also exhibit viscoelastic behavior. The viscoelastic behavior is manifest in the time dependent aspect of the material response; in damping of vibrations; and in the attenuation of waves including waves used in clinical diagnostic ultrasound. The viscoelastic behavior of biological materials is due various interactions of collagen with the proteins, water, and ground substance when it is loaded. As this is a rate dependent phenomenon, a material will respond differently if loaded quickly as opposed to loading more slowly. The slope of the stress strain curve will increase with an increasing strain rate (Fig. 5), and the apparent elastic modulus, the constant of proportionality relating the strain to the stress, will increase accordingly. If a viscoelastic material is stretched to a constant deformation, it will slowly relax, with the stress in the material decreasing. A relaxation curve is a plot of the viscoelastic stress versus time response (Fig. 6).

Figure 5: Effect of changing strain rate on stress strain curve for a viscoelastic material [5].

BME 315 Biomechanics Material Properties of Tendon

Figure 6: Stress relaxation of a viscoelastic material under a constant deformation. A formal relaxation curve displays modulus vs. time. The zero of the time scale is taken halfway through the rise time so that the flat portion to the left (which is not relaxation) is not shown. It is common to use a logarithmic time scale that of course, does not show the zero.

II. Theoretical background Stress, strain, and Youngs modulus: In order to obtain property information about a material that is independent of the geometry, measurements of stress and strain are calculated from force and deflection. The specimen geometry shown in Figure 7 will be referenced in these calculations.

Figure 7: Tension test configuration of tendon specimen.

We will be using engineering stress, which is the load normalized by the test specimen initial cross-sectional area:

(1)

BME 315 Biomechanics Material Properties of Tendon

Engineering strain is defined as the deflection, normalized by the unloaded length: or

(2)

where and are the final and initial lengths, respectively. In our testing, is the gage length of the specimen at which the tendon initially becomes taught and generates a tensile load (Fig. 8). Youngs Modulus, E, for a 1D loading can then be calculated from the linear region of the stress strain curve (Fig. 4) by Hookes law:

(3)
Viscoelastic behavior: As described previously, the viscoelastic behavior is manifest in the time dependent aspect of the material response. There are various models that are used to describe viscoelastic behavior of materials. Some models utilize combinations of springs and dashpots to describe the observed behavior of a material. These are popular in elementary introductions to the subject because one can visualize springs and viscous dampers and the models lead to simple differential equations that can be readily solved. The force in a spring is linear with the displacement u, with the constant of proportionality relating the two being the spring constant, k (Fig. 8, Eq. 4). The force in a dashpot is dependent on the rate of displacement, , and proportional to the damping coefficient Greek eta (Fig. 9, Eq. 5). Mechanically, a dashpot is a device which provides damping usually due to the displacement of a viscous fluid within it, and it is often used to represent this quality in other systems.

Figure 8: Spring model.

(4)

Figure 9: Dashpot model.

eta

(5)

BME 315 Biomechanics Material Properties of Tendon

The three most common models combining these elements are the Maxwell, Voight, and Kelvin standard linear solid model (Fig. 10). Deriving the equations modeling these systems is beyond the scope of this course. However we will look at the time dependent behavior of the tendon and how it changes with strain rate and under the application of constant strain.

Figure 10: Three mechanical models of viscoelasticity. a) Voight, b) Maxwell, and c) Kelvin standard linear solid. Under constant strain, the tendon exhibits stress relaxation. This means that the stress will decrease (relax) with time. The predicted stress relaxation response of these three models is shown in Fig. 11 below. The parameters associated with the initial and final force as well as the deformation are shown for their respective models in Fig. 11. The exponential decay of force predicted by models (a) and (c) gives rise to a time constant, not shown.

Figure 11: a) Maxwell, b) Voight, and c) standard linear solid model of relaxation behavior for deformation u [5]. A formal relaxation curve displays modulus vs. time. The zero of the time scale is taken halfway through the rise time so that the flat portion to the left (which is not relaxation) is not shown.

Similarly, in creep, which is the time-dependent strain response to step stress, the response of model (c) is a single exponential.

BME 315 Biomechanics Material Properties of Tendon

Is the behavior in fact exponential? Many decaying curves superficially resemble exponentials. For example, a power law in time, in which A and n are constants, is as follows. F(t) = A t-n (6) Power laws are also used to model time-depenent materials. Even with a curve fit, it may be a challenge to distinguish different models if the time window is narrow. To distinguish models, use a wide window in which the ratio of the shortest time to the longest time is as large as possible. The shortest time available is limited by how fast the deformation is applied by the test instrument. The time from zero to full deformation is called the rise time. For zero of the time scale, use the time halfway through the rise time. Record the first data point for a time a multiple of three of the rise time. To distinguish models it is customary to plot the time dependence on a logarithmic scale in time. An exponential function shows up as a sigmoid shape occupying about a factor of ten on the log time scale. If the scale is logarithmic on both axes, a power law shows up as a straight line. Thus the exponential and power law models can be easily distinguished. A formal relaxation curve displays modulus vs. time. The zero of the time scale is taken halfway through the rise time. Zero time of course does not appear explicitly in the logarithmic scale.