Overview

I am working on the multiscale modelling of soft tissue materials. Soft tissue comprise of an hierarchical arrangement of filaments that reinforce and strengthen the materials at different length scales. It is the aim of this work to understand how micro-mechanisms at the levels of the filaments affect the overall mechanical behaviour of the material. Multiscale modelling of a material allows us to incorporate micro-structural details into the constitutive model.


Research Objectives

  • Development of a representative volume element (RVE) to represent tissue architecture at the nano-scale.

  • Homogenization of the RVE response to study the impact of the modelled mechanisms on the material behaviour at the micro-scale (≈ 10−6 m).

  • Development of a representative volume element (RVE) at the micro-scale that incorporates possible interactions between micro-filaments and the extracellular matrix in which they are embedded.

  • To ascertain the influence of fibre-matrix interactions on the overall material behaviour.