Michael A. Soltz

TL;DR: The hypothesis that the application of dynamic deformational loading at physiological strain levels enhances chondrocyte matrix elaboration in cell-seeded agarose scaffolds to produce a more functional engineered tissue construct than in free swelling controls is tested.

TL;DR: The results of this study provide some of the most direct evidence to date that interstitial fluid pressurization plays a fundamental role in cartilage mechanics; they also indicate that the mechanism of fluid load support in Cartilage can be properly predicted from theory.

TL;DR: The results of this study demonstrate that the integration of the CLE model with the biphasic mixture theory can provide a model of cartilage that can successfully curve-fit three distinct testing configurations while producing material parameters consistent with previous reports in the literature.

TL;DR: The hypothesis that cartilage dynamic stiffness derives primarily from flow-dependent viscoelasticity as predicted by the linear biphasic theory is verified and the significance of interstitial fluid pressurization as the fundamental mechanism of cartilage load support over a wide range of frequencies is demonstrated.

TL;DR: This model demonstrates that a simultaneous prediction of compression and tension experiments of articular cartilage, under stress-relaxation and dynamic loading, can be achieved when properly taking into account both flow-dependent and flow-independent viscoelastic effects, as well as tension-compression nonlinearity.