PMID- 35963022
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20220908
LR  - 20221002
IS  - 1878-0180 (Electronic)
IS  - 1878-0180 (Linking)
VI  - 134
DP  - 2022 Oct
TI  - A discrete fiber network finite element model of arterial elastin network 
      considering inter-fiber crosslinking property and density.
PG  - 105396
LID - S1751-6161(22)00303-4 [pii]
LID - 10.1016/j.jmbbm.2022.105396 [doi]
AB  - Inter-fiber crosslinks within the extracellular matrix (ECM) play important roles 
      in determining the mechanical properties of the fibrous network. Discrete fiber 
      network (DFN) models have been used to study fibrous biological material, however 
      the contribution of inter-fiber crosslinks to the mechanics of the ECM network is 
      not well understood. In this study, a DFN model of arterial elastin network was 
      developed based on measured structural features to study the contribution of 
      inter-fiber crosslinking properties and density to the mechanics and fiber 
      kinematics of the network. The DFN was generated by randomly placing line 
      segments into a given domain following a fiber orientation distribution function 
      obtained from multiphoton microscopy until a desired fiber areal fraction was 
      reached. Intersections between the line segments were treated as crosslinks. The 
      generated DFN model was then incorporated into an ABAQUS finite element model to 
      simulate the network under equi- and nonequi-biaxial deformation. The inter-fiber 
      crosslinks were modeled using connector elements with either zero (pin joint) or 
      infinite (weld joint) rotational stiffness. Furthermore, inter-fiber crosslinking 
      density was systematically reduced and its effect on both network- and 
      fiber-level mechanics was studied. The DFN model showed good fitting and 
      predicting capabilities of the stress-strain behavior of the elastin network. 
      While the pin and weld joints do not seem to have noticeable effect on the 
      network stress-strain behavior, the crosslinking properties can affect the local 
      fiber mechanics and kinematics. Overall, our study suggests that inter-fiber 
      crosslinking properties are important to the multiscale mechanics and fiber 
      kinematics of the ECM network.
CI  - Copyright (c) 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
FAU - Yu, Xunjie
AU  - Yu X
AD  - Department of Mechanical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA, 02215, USA.
FAU - Zhang, Yanhang
AU  - Zhang Y
AD  - Department of Mechanical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA, 02215, USA; 
      Department of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA, 02215, USA; 
      Division of Materials Science & Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA, 
      02215, USA. Electronic address: yanhang@bu.edu.
LA  - eng
GR  - R01 HL098028/HL/NHLBI NIH HHS/United States
PT  - Journal Article
PT  - Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
DEP - 20220731
PL  - Netherlands
TA  - J Mech Behav Biomed Mater
JT  - Journal of the mechanical behavior of biomedical materials
JID - 101322406
RN  - 9007-34-5 (Collagen)
RN  - 9007-58-3 (Elastin)
SB  - IM
MH  - Biomechanical Phenomena
MH  - *Collagen/chemistry
MH  - *Elastin/chemistry
MH  - Extracellular Matrix/chemistry
MH  - Finite Element Analysis
MH  - Stress, Mechanical
OTO - NOTNLM
OT  - Crosslink
OT  - Discrete fiber network
OT  - Elastin network
OT  - Finite element
OT  - Rotational stiffness
COIS- Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known 
      competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared 
      to influence the work reported in this paper.
EDAT- 2022/08/14 06:00
MHDA- 2022/09/09 06:00
CRDT- 2022/08/13 18:13
PHST- 2022/03/30 00:00 [received]
PHST- 2022/07/13 00:00 [revised]
PHST- 2022/07/19 00:00 [accepted]
PHST- 2022/08/14 06:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2022/09/09 06:00 [medline]
PHST- 2022/08/13 18:13 [entrez]
AID - S1751-6161(22)00303-4 [pii]
AID - 10.1016/j.jmbbm.2022.105396 [doi]
PST - ppublish
SO  - J Mech Behav Biomed Mater. 2022 Oct;134:105396. doi: 10.1016/j.jmbbm.2022.105396. 
      Epub 2022 Jul 31.