Growth & Remodeling in Soft Tissues as applicable to the case of Tendons and Ligaments

Sunayana Veldanda

New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ

Advisor: Dr. I. Joga Rao

Abstract

Among the various important characteristics of soft tissues, one of the characteristics that is of importance in the present day life and needs to be understood is the Growth & Remodeling of soft tissues. It is a well-known idea today that Growth & Remodeling process is in most cases initiated due to changes in mechanical environment. Growth & Remodeling being an important phenomenon in soft tissues has received considerable attention during the recent years. Due to the incredible complexity of soft tissues mathematical formulation of Growth & Remodeling of soft tissues has gained importance in this area of research. Inspiteof the need for mathematical models that can explain the phenomenon of Growth & Remodeling in an accurate way there continues to be a lack of such models. Hence, a constitutive model was derived which explains Growth & Remodeling in tendons and ligaments appropriately. Population Dynamics has been widely used in the derivation of this constitutive model and the model is tested for a simple case of uniaxial extension on a cylindrical specimen.