| Abstract: | A constitutive relation proposed by Shoemaker (Ph.D. dissertation, 1984) to model the mechanical behavior of membraneous or two-dimensional soft tissues is described. Experiments by Schneider (Ph.D. dissertation, 1982) on human skin and Lee et al. (Am. J. Physiol., 249, H222-H230, 1985) on canine pericardium, and the application of the constitutive model to biaxial stress-strain data from these experiments, are discussed. Some experimental data and predictions of the model obtained by curvefitting are presented for comparison. Values of material parameters are also presented. It is concluded that the constitutive model is well able to fit results of individual tests, and that its generality (judged by consistency of parameters from test to test of the same specimen), though not complete, does compare favorably with some other results presented in the literature. |
