A novel constitutive model of skeletal muscle taking into account anisotropic damage

The purpose of this study is to develop a constitutive model of skeletal muscle that describes material anisotropy, viscoelasticity and damage of muscle tissue. A free energy function is described as the sum of volumetric elastic, isochoric elastic and isochoric viscoelastic parts. The isochoric elastic part is divided into two types of shear response and the response in the fiber direction. To represent the dependence of the mechanical properties on muscle activity, we incorporate a contractile element into the model. The viscoelasticity of muscle is modeled as a three-dimensional model constructed by extending the one-dimensional generalized Maxwell model. Based on the framework of continuum damage mechanics, the anisotropic damage of muscle tissue is expressed by a second-order damage tensor. The evolution of the damage is assumed to depend on the current strain and damage. The evolution equation is formulated using the representation theorem of tensor functions. The proposed model is applied to the experimental data on tensile mechanical properties in the fiber direction and the compression properties in the fiber and cross-fiber directions in literature. The model can predict non-linear mechanical properties and breaking points. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.