A comparison of stress in cracked fibrous tissue specimens with varied crack location, loading, and orientation using finite element analysis.

ABSTRACT: Cracks in fibrous soft tissue, such as intervertebral disc annulus fibrosus and knee meniscus, cause pain and compromise joint mechanics. A crack concentrates stress at its tip, making further failure and crack extension (fracture) more likely. Ex vivo mechanical testing is an important tool for studying the loading conditions required for crack extension, but prior work has shown that it is difficult to reproduce crack extension. Most prior work used edge crack specimens in uniaxial tension, with the crack 90° to the edge of the specimen. This configuration does not necessarily represent the loading conditions that cause in vivo crack extension. To find a potentially better choice for experiments aiming to reproduce crack extension, we used finite element analysis to compare, in factorial

SUBMITTER: Peloquin JM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4798902 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature