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Floods, bridge scour, and flood-associated loads have caused over sixty percent of bridge failures in the U.S. Current practices for the vulnerability assessment of instream bridges under the effec...

Additional file 1: Table S1. Wearable Motion Capture Sensor Specifications. Table S2. Wearable Fitness Tracker Capabilities. Figure S1. 2-D Trajectories of Human Arm Motion. Figure S2. Motion Signatures of Gross Human Activity Series. Flow Diagram of Motion Data Processing.

Background The characterization of limb biomechanics has broad implications for analyzing and managing motion in aging, sports, and disease. Motion capture videography and on-body wearable sensors are powerful tools for characterizing linear and angular motions of the body, though are often cumbersome, limited in detection, and largely non-portable. Here we examine the feasibility of utilizing an advanced wearable sensor, fabricated with stretchable electronics, to characterize linear and angular movements of the human arm for clinical feedback. A wearable skin-adhesive patch with embedded accelerometer and gyroscope (BioStampRC, MC10 Inc.) was applied to the volar surface of the forearm of healthy volunteers. Arms were extended/flexed for the range of motion of three different regimes: 1) horizontal adduction/abduction 2) flexion/extension 3) vertical abduction. Data were streamed and recorded revealing the signal “pattern” of movement in three separate axes. Additional signal processing and filtering afforded the ability to visualize these motions in each plane of the body; and the 3-dimensional motion envelope of the arm. Results Each of the three motion regimes studied had a distinct pattern – with identifiable qualitative and quantitative differences. Integration of all three movement regimes allowed construction of a “motion envelope,” defining and quantifying motion (range and shape – including the outer perimeter of the extreme of motion – i.e. the envelope) of the upper extremity. The linear and rotational motion results from multiple arm motions match measurements taken with videography and benchtop goniometer. Conclusions A conformal, stretchable electronic motion sensor effectively captures limb motion in multiple degrees of freedom, allowing generation of characteristic signatures which may be readily recorded, stored, and analyzed. Wearable conformal skin adherent sensor patchs allow on-body, mobile, personalized determination of motion and flexibility parameters. These sensors allow motion assessment while mobile, free of a fixed laboratory environment, with utility in the field, home, or hospital. These sensors and mode of analysis hold promise for providing digital “motion biomarkers” of health and disease.

Residual stresses are generated in living tissues by processes of growth and adaptation and they significantly influence the mechanical behaviour of the tissues. Thus, to effectively model the elastic response of the tissues relative to a residually stressed configuration the residual stresses need to be incorporated into the constitutive equations. The purposes of this paper are (a) to summarise a general elastic constitutive formulation that includes residual stress, (b) to specify the tensors needed for the three-dimensional implementation of the theory in a nonlinear finite element code, and (c) to use the theory and its implementation to evaluate the wall stress distribution in an abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) using patient specific geometry and material model parameters. The considered material is anisotropic with two preferred directions indicating the orientation of the collagen fibres in the aortic tissue. The method described in this paper is general and can be used, by specifying appropriate energy functions, to investigate other residually stressed biological systems.

An isotropic three-dimensional nonlinear viscoelastic model is developed to simulate the time-dependent behavior of passive skeletal muscle. The development of the model is stimulated by experimental data that characterize the response during simple uniaxial stress cyclic loading and unloading. Of particular interest is the rate-dependent response, the recovery of muscle properties from the preconditioned to the unconditioned state and stress relaxation at constant stretch during loading and unloading. The model considers the material to be a composite of a nonlinear hyperelastic component in parallel with a nonlinear dissipative component. The strain energy and the corresponding stress measures are separated additively into hyperelastic and dissipative parts. In contrast to standard nonlinear inelastic models, here the dissipative component is modeled using an evolution equation that combines rate-independent and rate-dependent responses smoothly with no finite elastic range. Large deformation evolution equations for the distortional deformations in the elastic and in the dissipative component are presented. A robust, strongly objective numerical integration algorithm is used to model rate-dependent and rate-independent inelastic responses. The constitutive formulation is specialized to simulate the experimental data. The nonlinear viscoelastic model accurately represents the time-dependent passive response of skeletal muscle.

Abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs) represent permanent, localized dilations of the abdominal aorta that can be life-threatening if progressing to rupture. Evaluation of risk of rupture depends on understanding the mechanical behavior of patient AAA walls. In this project, a series of patient AAA wall tissue samples have been evaluated through a combined anamnestic, mechanical, and histopathologic approach. Mechanical properties of the samples have been characterized using a novel, strain-controlled, planar biaxial testing protocol emulating the in vivo deformation of the aorta. Histologically, the tissue ultrastructure was highly disrupted. All samples showed pronounced mechanical stiffening with stretch and were notably anisotropic, with greater stiffness in the circumferential than the axial direction. However, there were significant intrapatient variations in wall stiffness and stress. In biaxial tests in which the longitudinal stretch was held constant at 1.1 as the circumferential stretch was extended to 1.1, the maximum average circumferential stress was 330 ± 70 kPa, while the maximum average axial stress was 190 ± 30 kPa. A constitutive model considering the wall as anisotropic with two preferred directions fit the measured data well. No statistically significant differences in tissue mechanical properties were found based on patient gender, age, maximum bulge diameter, height, weight, body mass index, or smoking history. Although a larger patient cohort is merited to confirm these conclusions, the project provides new insight into the relationships between patient natural history, histopathology, and mechanical behavior that may be useful in the development of accurate methods for rupture risk evaluation.