title: Elastic modulus of hard tissues.
abstract: This work aims at evaluating the elastic modulus of hard biological tissues by considering their staggered platelet micro-structure. An analytical expression for the effective modulus along the stagger direction is formulated using three non-dimensional structural variables. Structures with a single staggered hierarchy (e.g. collagen fibril) are first studied and predictions are compared with the experimental results and finite element simulations from the literature. A more complicated configuration, such as an array of fibrils, is analyzed next. Finally, a mechanical model is proposed for tooth dentin, in which variations in the multi-scale structural hierarchy are shown to significantly affect the macroscopic mechanical properties.
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials and Interfaces, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel. benny.bar-on@weizmann.ac.il
authors.forename: Benny
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Bar-On
authors.forename: H Daniel
authors.initials: HD
authors.lastname: Wagner
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003094:Collagen; D003804:Dentin; D055119:Elastic Modulus; D020342:Finite Element Analysis; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological
chemical_list: D003094:Collagen