Material properties of amniotic-based scaffolds: experimental and numerical evaluation of hyperelastic model
摘要
Due to its availability and biological properties, the human amniotic membrane has been widely used for various bio-engineering applications. The present work investigates the mechanical properties of newly developed nanofibers, which are made of amniotic matrices as the main layer, electrospuned via silk fibroin (SF) and sodium alginate (SA) as other. Two fabricated composites, hAM/SF and hAM/SF/SA, were assessed under uniaxial tensile loading to compare their mechanical behavior with that of the plain amniotic membrane. Thereafter, hyperelastic constitutive models are exploited to accurately characterize the nonlinear mechanical behavior of developed composites, enabling the application of finite element modeling to analyze stress distribution within the membrane. These models were employed to fit the experimental data, accordingly, demonstrating excellent agreement between the experimental results and the modeling predictions. This alignment confirms the suitability of hyperelastic models for describing the mechanical behavior of our newly developed composites. The findings presented by this study will not only enhance our knowledge about the improvements made by the new constituents in the amniotic membrane but also provide a foundation for future modeling and experimental studies involving relevant loading configurations in tissue engineering and wound healing contexts.