Ligaments are regularly subjected to repetitive loading in vivo. Typically, mechanical studies focus on repetitive loading protocols of short duration, while those characterizing damage accumulation over a longer duration (i.e., fatigue studies) are lacking. The aims of this study were as follows: (a) to demonstrate that damage does accumulate in ligament tissue subjected to repetitive loading ...

We show that the recently proposed confining string theory describes smooth surfaces with long-range correlations for the normal components of tangent vectors. These long-range correlations arise as a consequence of a " frustrated antiferromagnetic " interaction whose two main features are non-locality and a negative stiffness.

[A] matrix with constants describing the anisotropy of the material [B] strain matrix [BL] linear strain matrix [BNL] nonlinear strain matrix c speed of sound d rate of deformation tensor dp plastic rate of deformation D elastic constitutive tensor [D] matrix of the elastic constitutive tensor [DT] matrix form of the constitutive tensor ds lengths of the vector dx dS lengths of the vector dX dv...

Tensile properties of the larval cuticle of Manduca sexta were measured during the fifth instar. It was found that as the larvae grew and the cuticle thickened, the tangent modulus (intrinsic stiffness) for the cuticle declined rapidly. The extensibility of the cuticle during the growth period remained relatively high and fairly constant, while the flexural stiffness remained low. Subsequently,...

A numerical method is presented for stability analysis of cable–bar structures. An optimization problem is formulated to find the minimum value of the incremental total potential energy that depends on the direction of the incremental displacements. The penalty method with slack variables is used for representing the discontinuity in member stiffness. The tangent stiffness matrix is shifted to ...

A new technique for computation structural instability points using the finite element method is presented. The approach is based on the estimation of critical displacement pattern by writing an approximation of the tangent stiffness singularity condition at the instability point. The critical load is subsequently computed by using a secant load-displacement relationship. Details of this proced...

PURPOSE To investigate a relationship between birefringence and elasticity of porcine sclera ex vivo using polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT). METHODS Elastic parameters and birefringence of 19 porcine eyes were measured. Four pieces of scleral strips which were parallel to the limbus, with a width of 4 mm, were dissected from the optic nerve head to the temporal sid...