Open Access

ARTICLE

Elasto-Damage Modeling of Biopolymer Molecules Response

F. Maceri¹, M. Marino¹, G. Vairo¹

1 Department of Civil Engineering, University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, Via del Politecnico 1, 00133 Rome Italy, E-mail: franco.maceri@lagrange.it, m.marino@ing.uniroma2.it,vairo@ing.uniroma2.it

Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences 2012, 87(5), 461-482. https://doi.org/10.3970/cmes.2012.087.461

Abstract

The mechanical behavior of biopolymer mo -le -cu -les is herein addressed and a novel predictive model for their elasto-damage response is proposed. Both entropic and energetic elastic mechanisms are accounted for, and coupled by consistent equilibrium conditions. Moreover, through non-smooth mechanics arguments, molecular damage is modeled accounting for failure due to both mechanical and non-mechanical damage sources. The model is applied to collagen molecules and an excellent agreement with available experimental tests and atomistic computations is shown. The proposed predictive theory can be usefully integrated in hierarchical models of biological structures towards a multiscale continuum approach.

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