Citation

Takaza M, Simms CK. Proc. IRCOBI 2012; 40: 503-514.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2012, International Research Council on Biomechanics of Injury)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Appropriate mechanical representation of passive muscle tissue is crucial for human body impact modelling. This requires an understanding of the deformation behaviour of the tissue. Existing data mostly relate to uniaxial compression tests at normalized strain rates of between 0.05%/s and 3200%/s and Split Hopkinson bar tests at normalized strain rates of above 54,000%/s. Thus data on fresh tissue in both the fibre and cross-fibre direction at normalized strain rates relevant to automotive accidents are needed. In this paper results of compressive loading of freshly slaughtered porcine muscle samples using a drop-tower testing rig are reported. Fibre and cross-fibre compression tests at strain rates varying from 11,600%/s to 37,800%/s were performed. Results show a nonlinear stress-stretch relationship as well as a clear rate dependency. The mean (standard deviation) engineering stress in the fibre direction at a stretch of 0.7 was 22.03kPa (1.5kPa) at a strain rate of 22,000%/s and 37.06kPa (3.0kPa) at 37,800%/s. For the cross-fibre direction, the equivalent engineering stresses were 5.95kPa (0.6kPa) at 11,600%/s, 25.88kPa (5.3kPa) at 22,000%/s and 43.68kPa (1.4kPa) at 37,800%/s. However, significant local strain variations and an average of 8% mass loss were observed, highlighting the difficulties in these kinds of tests.