Mechanics of Biological Tissue

This book contains a collection of papers that were presented at the IUTAM Symposium on Mechanics of Biological Tissue, which was held in Graz, A- tria,fromJune27toJuly2,2004.ThesettingofGrazwasveryappropriatefor the symposium since it is the city where such illustriousscientistsasJohannes Kepler, Ernst Mach, Ludwig Boltzmann, Erwin Schr¨ odinger and Otto Kratky spent parts of their lives, while the cultural life of Graz provided ample - portunity for complementing the scienti?c proceedings. Graz has an historic centre, which is one of the best preserved old town centres in Europe, and which was added to the UNESCO world cultural heritage list in 1999. Thesymposiumbroughttogether96participantsfromuniversities,research centres and clinics in 19 countries. There were 42 oral presentations, incl- ing 7 keynote lectures, and 15 poster presentations. The keynote lectures were given by P.B. Canham (University of Western Ontario, Canada), S.C. Cowin (City University of New York, USA), K. Hayashi (Osaka University, Japan), J.D. Humphrey (Texas A&M University, USA), P.J. Hunter (University of Auckland, New Zealand), R.S. Lakes (University of Wisconsin, USA), and P.D. Richardson (Brown University, USA).

The mechanics of biological tissues is a multidisciplinary and rapidly expanding area of research. This book highlights some important research directions that combine mechanical sciences with exciting new developments in biology.

 

It includes state-of-the-art articles on:

• Tissue growth and remodelling – general continuum theories of growth, remodelling and adaptation, with specific applications to arterial, tendon and cartilage growth and to bone healing.
• Micromechanics, cells and matrix – measurements of the mechanical properties of cells, engineering of cell systems, constitutive and computational modelling of cells and cell-substrate interactions, and the transition from microscopic modelling to its macroscopic consequences.
• Arteries in health and disease – analysis of residual stress and its development, modelling the constitutive properties of arterial walls, computational analysis of the effect of stenting on the arterial wall, studies of collagen fibre distributions in saccular aneurysms and the interaction between blood flow and aneurysm development.
• Biological tissues – the musculo-skeletal system, heart valves, ligaments, intervertebral discs, the uterus and vocal fold tissues, with experimental, modelling and computational perspectives.
• Image-based analysis – illustration of imaging techniques that have great potential for the analysis of tissue properties and pathologies and for guiding the design of engineered tissue constructs.

 

This collection of papers should be of interest to theoretical, computational and experimental researchers and doctoral students in the area of biomechanics and in related areas of engineering, biology and medicine.