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Analytical Chem JoVE (Open Access) Citable · DOI

Biomechanical Characterization of Human Soft Tissues Using Indentation and Tensile Testing

DOI: 10.3791/54872-v
What you'll learn
  • ✓ Perform non-destructive indentation testing to measure tissue elastic properties
  • ✓ Conduct tensile testing to characterize viscoelastic behavior of soft tissues
  • ✓ Apply biomechanical protocols to compare native and engineered tissue substrates
  • ✓ Interpret stress-strain data to match engineered materials to native tissue properties
Protocol

Tissue biomechanics is important for maintaining cell shape and function and for determining phenotype. This report demonstrates non-destructive mechanical protocols for characterizing elastic and viscoelastic properties of human soft tissues, which can be directly applied to tissue-engineered substrates to allow a close matching of engineered materials to native tissue.

Difficulty
intermediate
Total time
~2-4 hours per sample set (skin + cartilage)

Steps

1
Prepare human skin specimen for testing

Extract and prepare a human skin tissue sample, removing excess surrounding material and standardizing dimensions for reproducible mechanical testing.

▶ 00:51
2
Perform tensile testing on skin tissue

Mount the prepared skin specimen in a tensile testing apparatus and apply controlled strain to measure elastic and viscoelastic properties including stress-strain curves.

▶ 01:40
3
Prepare cartilage and conduct indentation testing

Prepare a human cartilage specimen and perform compressive indentation testing using a calibrated indenter to measure tissue stiffness and mechanical response without destructive damage.

▶ 03:23
4
Analyze and interpret biomechanical characterization results

Generate and compare mechanical property data from skin and cartilage testing to establish baseline native tissue parameters for engineered substrate design.

▶ 05:01
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