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Computational Modelling of Collagen Hydrogel

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Multiscale Mechanobiology in Tissue Engineering

Part of the book series: Frontiers of Biomechanics ((FB,volume 3))

Abstract

Collagen is one of the most used biomaterials in tissue engineering applications. It is abundant in biological tissues, namely, constituting approximately 30% of all musculoskeletal tissues, through the presence in the extracellular matrix. Along the years, several works tried to characterize this biomaterial, as isolated fibres or as part of hydrogels, but the fragility of this material has been deferring its full characterization. This chapter presents an experimental and numerical characterization of a highly hydrated collagen hydrogel, with 0.20% of collagen concentration. The experimental data obtained through rheology experiments with three hydrogel samples was complemented with numerical simulation through finite element techniques. This framework was complemented with literature data, resulting on a set of biomechanical parameters that can describe the hydrogel behaviour, namely, a shear modulus of 0.023 kPa and a bulk modulus of 0.769 kPa, corresponding to a Poisson’s ratio of 0.485. The ultimate aim for this work is to contribute for the determination of the load transfer mechanisms through a collagen medium, i.e. to understand the contribution of collagen on the mechanical stimuli that affect cell behaviour on scaffold cell seeding.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the funding from the European Research Council (no. 258321). In addition, the cooperation of Chris Holland and Peter Laity (Natural Materials Group, Dept. Materials Science and Engineering, The University of Sheffield) with the rheology experiments is also gratefully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. INSIGNEO Institute for in silico Medicine, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

    Andre Castro, Maryam Shariatzadeh & Damien Lacroix

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  1. Andre Castro
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  2. Maryam Shariatzadeh
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  3. Damien Lacroix
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Correspondence to Damien Lacroix .

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Castro, A., Shariatzadeh, M., Lacroix, D. (2019). Computational Modelling of Collagen Hydrogel. In: Multiscale Mechanobiology in Tissue Engineering. Frontiers of Biomechanics, vol 3. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8075-3_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8075-3_8

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-10-8074-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-10-8075-3

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