Mathematical modeling and simulations for large-strain J-shaped diagrams of soft biological materials

Abstract

Herein, we study stress-strain diagrams of soft biological materials such as animal skin, muscles, and arteries by Finsler geometry (FG) modeling. The stress-strain diagram of these biological materials is always J-shaped and is composed of toe, heel, linear, and failure regions. In the toe region, the stress is almost zero, and the length of this zero-stress region becomes very large ('150%) in, for example, certain arteries. In this paper, we study long-toe diagrams using two-dimensional (2D) and 3D FG modeling techniques and Monte Carlo (MC) simulations. We find that, except for the failure region, large-strain J-shaped diagrams are successfully reproduced by the FG models. This implies that the complex J-shaped curves originate from the interaction between the directional and positional degrees of freedom of polymeric molecules, as implemented in the FG model.