Comparative Assessment on Hyperelastic Constitutive Models in Describing Mechanical Behavior of Gelatin-Based Multimaterial Hydrogels

Hydrogels are widely used for repairing and regenerating soft and hard tissues due to their supportive 3D polymer network structure for cell adhesion and proliferation, controlled degradation, and biomechanical properties. A detailed understanding of the mechanical behavior of hydrogels was required to use them for tissue engineering applications. It demands a more significant number of experiments to be conducted. The use of computational simulations avoids an excessive number of experiments. However, computational simulations require precise constitutive models to imitate the mechanical behavior of the hydrogels. The present study delves into a comparative study on selecting a precise constitutive model to describe multimaterial hydrogel mechanical behavior for soft tissue engineering applications. The multimaterial hydrogel was developed from gelatin, polyvinyl alcohol, and guar gum-based biomaterials. The uniaxial compressive test was conducted under different displacement rates. The applicability of different hyperelastic constitutive models was evaluated using the experimental stress and strain data using ANSYS 2021 R2 software. The predictability of the constitutive models was verified with the experimental data to assess the accuracy. The findings of the current study will provide a robust framework and database for engineers and researchers to describe the mechanical behavior of multimaterial hydrogel for tissue engineering applications.