Evolving Properties of Biological Materials Captured via Needle-Based Cavity Expansion Method
Name
11340_2024_1128_ReferencePDF.pdf
Size
2.23 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
885ac3e3f855d324d7487d11b9ba2594
Author(s)
Varner, H. M.
Naghibzadeh, S. K.
Spaeth, K. C.
Klein, A.
Cohen, T.
Date Issued
December 4, 2024
Journal
Experimental Mechanics
Publisher
Springer US
Citation
Varner, H.M., Naghibzadeh, S.K., Spaeth, K.C. et al. Evolving Properties of Biological Materials Captured via Needle-Based Cavity Expansion Method. Exp Mech 65, 141–155 (2025).
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Background The mechanical properties of biological tissues change over time and with disease progression. Quantifying these mechanical properties can thus be instrumental for medical diagnosis and for evaluation of tissue viability for transplant. However, soft and biological materials are exceptionally challenging to mechanically characterize using conventional testing methods, which are hindered by limitations of sample size, fixturing capabilities, and sample preparation. Objective We hypothesize that Volume Controlled Cavity Expansion (VCCE) is well-suited to capture subtle mechanical differences in biological tissue. The objective of this work is therefore twofold: first, we seek to quantify how stiffness of liver and gelatin evolve with age. In achieving this understanding, we aim to demonstrate the precision of VCCE in measuring subtle changes in the mechanical properties of biological tissues. Methods Performing VCCE tests over 15 days in samples of gelatin and liver (porcine and bovine), we track the evolving pressure-volume response and deformation limits of the materials. Results In both materials, we observed time-dependent variation of the stiffness and fracture thresholds. In gelatin VCCE repeatably captured stiffening over time, which was correlated with a higher fracture stress. This was in contrast to observations in bovine liver, where stiffening corresponded to a lower fracture stress. Porcine liver initially stiffened, then reversed this trend and relaxed. Conclusion Through this work we show that liver and gelatin stiffen with age, and that this trend is measurable via VCCE. These results highlight the utility of VCCE and call attention to the need for a new class of mechanism based constitutive models that are capable of capturing variations in material over time with a minimal number of parameters.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Naval Construction
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11340-024-01128-z
