This is the 10th Summer School on Biomechanics that we have organized in the series that started in 2001. The aim is to provide an up-to-date overview of biomechanical modeling, simulation and experimental methods on different length scales.

The lectures will include some essential ingredients of continuum mechanics, especially nonlinear elasticity. The focus is on the mechanical and structural modeling of fiber-reinforced materials, including collagen fiber dispersion with the inclusion of collagen cross-links and residual stresses. Applications to artery walls in health and disease such as aneurysms and aortic dissections will be illustrated. Lectures will also cover cardiac biomechanical modeling, touching on the nonlinear anisotropic and viscoelastic nature of the myocardium, the synthesis and integration of these concepts into whole-organ models, and the assimilation of image-based data for patient-specific modeling. Advanced topics on modeling the entire cardiovascular system, hemodynamics, engineered heart tissue and modeling will also be discussed. Vascular adaptation during disease and treatment will be discussed along with measurements of strain fields using imaging techniques and digital image correlation in soft tissues. The important area of parameter identification will be covered by full-field optical measurements using the virtual fields method in elasticity.

Another focus will be brain mechanics, including the unusual response of brain tissues and axons under loads, the shaping of the brain and skull during development, and the study of brain trauma and diseases. It will be shown that the gyrification patterns occurring in the human brain are the result of elastic instabilities. Finally, and most importantly, all participants will receive the code, datasets, and documented examples for brain, skin, and arteries, and may bring their own stretch-stress data for analysis.

Future directions and challenges will be identified in lectures for research in multiscale biomechanics and mechanobiology involving mechanical, biological, electrical and fluid-structure interactions.

 

Audience

The Summer School is addressed to PhD students and postdoctoral researchers in biomedical engineering, biophysics, mechanical and civil engineering, applied mathematics and mechanics, materials science and physiology and more senior scientists and engineers (including some from relevant industries) whose interests are in the area of biomechanics and mechanobiology of soft biological tissues.

 

Preliminary Suggested Readings

S Avril. Hyperelasticity of soft tissues and related inverse problems, in: S Avril, S Evans, eds., Material Parameter Identification and Inverse Problems in Soft Tissue Biomechanics, CISM Courses and Lectures No. 573, International Centre for Mechanical Sciences, Springer, 37-66 [link]

S Avril, MW Gee, A Hemmler, S Rugonyi. Patient‐specific computational modeling of endovascular aneurysm repair: State of the art and future directions. Int J Numer Method Biomed Eng, 37:e3529, 2021. [link]

R Chabiniok, VY Wang, M Hadjicharalambous, L Asner, J Lee, M Sermesant, E Kuhl, AA Young, P Moireau, MP Nash, D Chapelle. Multiphysics and multiscale modelling, data–model fusion and integration of organ physiology in the clinic: ventricular cardiac mechanics. Interface focus, 6:20150083, 2016. [link]

A Goriely, S Budday, E Kuhl. Neuromechanics: from neurons to brain. Adv Appl Mech, 48:79-139, 2015. [link]

A Goriely, MGD Geers, GA Holzapfel, J Jayamohan, A Jérusalem, S Sivaloganathan, W Squier, JAW van Dommelen, S Waters, E. Kuhl. Mechanics of the brain: perspectives, challenges, and opportunities. Biomech Model Mechanobiol, 14:931-965, 2015. [link]

GA Holzapfel, RW Ogden. An arterial constitutive model accounting for collagen content and cross-linking. J Mech Phys Solids, 136:103682, 2020. [link]

GA Holzapfel, RW Ogden. On fiber dispersion models: exclusion of compressed fibers and spurious model comparisons. J Elasticity, 129:49–68, 2017. [link]

GA Holzapfel, RW Ogden, S Sherifova. On fibre dispersion modelling of soft biological tissues: a review. Proc Royal Soc A, 475:20180736, 2019. [link]

K Linka, A Buganza Tepole, GA Holzapfel, E Kuhl. Automated model discovery for skin: Discovering the best model, data, and experiment. doi:10.1101/2022.12.19.520979, 2023. [pdf]

K Linka, SR St Pierre, E Kuhl. Automated model discovery for human brain using constitutive artificial neural networks. doi:10.1101/2022.11.08.515656, 2023. [pdf]

R Miller, E Kerfoot, C Mauger, TF Ismail, AA Young, DA Nordsletten. An implementation of patient-specific biventricular mechanics simulations with a deep learning and computational pipeline. Front Physiol, 1398, 2021. [link]

SJ Mousavi, S Farzaneh, S Avril. Patient-specific predictions of aneurysm growth and remodeling in the ascending thoracic aorta using the homogenized constrained mixture model. Biomech Model Mechanobiol, 18:1895-1913, 2019. [link]

D Nordsletten, A Capilnasiu, W Zhang, A Wittgenstein, M Hadjicharalambous, G Sommer, R Sinkus, GA Holzapfel. A viscoelastic model for human myocardium. Acta Biomater, 135:441-457, 2021. [link]

RW Ogden. Nonlinear continuum mechanics and modelling the elasticity of soft biological tissues with a focus on artery walls, in GA Holzapfel, RW Ogden, eds., Biomechanics: Trends in Modeling and Simulation, Springer, 2016, pp. 83- 156. [pdf]

C Petit, AA Karkhaneh Yousefi, O Ben Moussa, JB Michel, A Guignandon, S Avril. Regulation of SMC traction forces in human aortic thoracic aneurysms. Biomech Model Mechanobiol, 20:717-731, 2021. [link]

S Teichtmeister, GA Holzapfel. A constitutive model for fibrous tissues with cross-linked collagen fibers including dispersion – with an analysis of the Poynting effect. J Mech Phys Solids, 164:104911, 2022. [link]