Theses and Dissertations

Issuing Body

Mississippi State University

Advisor

Williams, Lakeisha

Committee Member

Liao, Jun

Committee Member

Horstemeyer, Mark

Committee Member

Butler, Allen R.

Committee Member

McLaughlin, Ronald

Other Advisors or Committee Members

Elder, Steven

Date of Degree

12-13-2008

Original embargo terms

MSU Only Indefinitely

Document Type

Graduate Thesis - Campus Access Only

Major

Biomedical Engineering

Degree Name

Master of Science

College

James Worth Bagley College of Engineering

Department

Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering

Abstract

This study quantified mechanical and structural responses to loading conditions at subtendon hierarchical levels. Tensile tests were performed at three strain rates on three groups of rabbit patellar tendon specimens. For each rate, tangent modulus (E) was computed from the stress-strain curves and the following structural responses were evaluated: (i) Area percent of collagen fibrils (FAR) and (ii) Skewness angle formed between proteoglycans and collagen fibrils. For 0.1%/s, 10%/s, and 70%/s, E was 48.8±20.3MPa, 64.7±29.3MPa, and 78.6±31.7MPa, respectively. For control, 0.1%/s, 10%/s, and 70%/s, the mean FAR was 0.7552±0.1476, 0.6628±0.1190, 0.6335±0.1013, and 0.6047±0.0384, respectively; and proteoglycan skewness angles were 14.70º±11.01º, 12.76º±10.13º, 15.08.0º±11.66º, and 16.68º±12.07º, respectively. For increased E, interfibrillar components had less time for effective fluid flow, energy dissipation, and structural rearrangement. The inverse relationship of FAR to strain rate may be due to broken fibrils and the Poisson effect. Proteoglycan skewness angle increase is likely due to stretched fibrils.

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11668/16336

Comments

proteoglycans||collagen fibrils||patellar tendon

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